#35 - Volunteer for a cause.

Thank you much to Rachel Felson for introducing me to The Pirate Store (a.k.a. 826 Valencia) last October during my half marathon / visit / vacation in San Francisco. I'd like to explain what all 826 is, but their website does a better job:

"826CHI is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.
Our services are structured around the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.
With this in mind, we provide drop-in tutoring, after-school workshops, field trips, in-school tutoring, help for English language learners, and assistance with student publications.
All of our programs are challenging and enjoyable, and ultimately strengthen each student’s power to express ideas effectively, creatively, confidently, and in his or her individual voice." http://www.826chi.org/about/mission_facts/

There are now 8 chapters born out of 826 Valencia: Boston, Chicago, LA, DC, Michigan, NYC, and Seattle. Yes, that's right. Michigan. Ann Arbor, to be exact. I'll get to that.

Each of the 8 chapters have a store front that is a front for the non-profit space (as was required in San Francisco when the first one opened) that raises money for the tutoring centers in hilarious was. 826 Valencia is The Pirate Store. When visiting The Pirate Store in San Francisco, I bought myself a little telescope in a pretty wooden box and a book, I Found This Funny, editted by Judd Apatow. (I love editting, by the way. But I have no idea if there are one or two t's in editting, and edited. Neither looks right. And I never look up what is right, which is very unlike me.) The book, by the way, is a brilliant compilation of stories, but is actually rarely hilariously funny. There's some irony. Or Judd Apatow just has a really weird sense of humor. Which would be weird since I find his work hilarious.

Anyways, once I realized that Ann Arbor had a chapter, I racked my brain for what the store could be that housed 826 Michigan. There had to be some place in Ann Arbor that has perplexed me for years with its oddity, but I just couldn't think of what it was. Fortunately, when I was back in Ann Arbor for my birthday about a month later with my parents, Chris, and Casey, I convinced them to find this place with me. It turns out the Ann Arbor chapter is the Liberty Street Robot Supply and Repair Store, which has INDEED bothered me for years! Did residents in Ann Arbor really have SO many robots that there was a need for a robot supply AND repair store?! The answer: no. It's 826. And the store is full of lovely little robots and robot-themed things. Hilarious. The store had so perplexed me that I took a picture of a robot with a very long mustache when I was there for spring break one year. Those photos were taken April 7, 2009. That's a good year and a half of wondering. I enjoy that.

The other stores, in case you're curious - and if you're still reading by this point, you probably are - are The Bigfoot Research Insitute of Greater Boston, the LA Time Travel Mart, the DC Museum of Unnatural History, the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, the Greenwood Space Travel Supply Company, and the Boring Store of Chicago.

"The Boring Store?" you might ask. "Chicago's is just the Boring Store? Really?" Well, if you stop there and just read the title, then, yes, that's all it is. It's definitely not a spy store. No way. You probably shouldn't even go there. I mean, there's no way that The Boring Store is a front for a spy store which is a front for 826. That would be way too sneaky.

I got a little more interested once I realized my buddy Hassan Ali works at the Boring Store. He risks being in the world of hipster in Wicker Park, but really, the hipsters just copy everything he does. He spends some good time in the Boring Store and has even been spy of the week!

So I applied online to do some voluntering. I went to the orientation, where I learned all about 826 Chi. It was lovely.

They have an incredibly convenient way to volunteer and a variety of ways to volunteer as well. I just had to go on the online calendar and pick what I wanted to do that still had openings. I decided to go to an in-school workshop on July 19.

Angela Mioglionico kindly drove me to Wicker Park, dropped me off, and I caught a ride with Kait and Billie to Pilsen, where 5 of us worked with kids in small groups to write stories of their own creation. We started with a character and then wound up with stories they illustrated, which would then be published at 826 and brought back to the school.

My group was quite vocal and funny. There were some fits, which 6th graders are wont to do. They were SO close to being hilarious in the story, but they were more prone to violence. I kept reminding them that the audience of their story were first graders, so we had to keep it tame. They claimed the first graders in their building loved blood. That was hard to argue against. My favorite part was when they decided one of the characters would have a police dog. What kind of police dog? A chihuahua. What was his name? Clockwise. Comic genius. Clockwise, however, was cut from the story in favor of a big, black-and-brown dog with a white belly whose name was Fiery, pronounced "fury." Oh well.

We wound up with a lovely story where 2 friends made up with an old friend who had been chasing them as they escaped jail, where they had been imprisoned for double dipping a spoon while making soup. They made up despite the fact that they all wanted to date the same girl. Way to overcome adversity and choose friendship, new friends. Good work.

It was a lovely experience and I will definitely do it again. I think the volunteer leader was nervous since I was a new volunteer and it was quite a rambuctuous group, but I explained later that I was a PE major and could handle a lot of chaos and silliness.

I can't wait to do more with 826!