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The storefronts

gets kids
hitting the books.
By Andrew Schulman

seemingly gratified by her indecision.
A (fittingly) literate history -
In 2000, the author Dave Eggers was liv-
ing in Park Slope, Brooklyn, something of a
nest then for aspiring writers and literary
types. Entering his third year as the editor of
McSweeney's, a literary magazine that had
not yet blossomed into the eminent publishing
house it is today, he was in the midst of writing
his first book, "A Heartbreaking Work of Stag-
gering Genius," published that year.
He was also nurturing the seedling that gave
rise to 826 National, the umbrella organization
to which 826michigan and its six sister centers
belong.
While he was mingling with fellow writ-
ers, he was contemplating the shortcomings of
urban public schools with some of his college
friends who had become teachers.
The solution - to somehow link his writer
friends with the struggling school children -
was right there.
What was missing was a conduit.
He found that conduit in 826 Valencia, the
street address of the building in San Fran-
cisco's Mission District that Eggers opened in
February 2002 to house his first tutoring cen-
ter and the headquarters of the burgeoning
McSweeney's.
Eggers, his McSweeney's staff and a few
local volunteers plied in the back of the build-
ing, inviting students to join them.
When Eggers's landlord told him the
Valencia building was zoned for retail, Egg-
ers installed a "pirate store" at the front of the
building, specializing in "scurvy-be-gone" eye
patches and other buccaneer memorabilia.
But for all of Valencia's promise of improv-
ing students' writing, they didn't hurry in.
Eggers soon determined that 826 Valencia was
suffering from a trust gap. Here he was, hop-
ingto lure kids into tutoring with a pirate store,
and nobody- even knew the tutoring was hap-
pening.
Gerald Richards, 826 National's CEO, lik-
ened it to a stranger proposing to sell kids ice
cream.
But finally news of 826's programs spread.
Students rushed in, their parents struggling to

nudge them past the miniature planks for ham-
sters and back toward the workshops.
The store, once a liability, was now winning
kids over by the dozens.
With help from the storefronts, very con-
sciously designed to meet the community on
the street, 826michigan's Liberty Street Robot
Supply and Repair (see side box), 826DC's
Museum of Unnatural History and 826NYC's
Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. are all doing
just as well as the San Francisco location.
"It wouldn't be 826 without some sort of
front-facing, strange, magical, surreal place
that is a Bigfoot research center or a space
travel store," Richards said. "It has to have
the quirky, interesting, different, front-facing
piece of it, because I think that is the thing that
draws in everybody."
. But Richards said that the store fagade's
main function is to "de-stigmatize" tutoring,
to foster a sphere wholly apart from, and even
somehow polar to, the classroom.
"The kids, when they say they're going,
they're not like, 'I'm going to get tutoring,' "he
said. "It's like, 'I'm going to 826. I'm going to
the pirate store,' or, 'I'm going to the superhero
store.'"
Ann Arbor-bound
When 826michigan opened on June 1, 2005,
826 Valencia was thriving and Eggers had
unwrapped two more 826s, in Los Angeles and
Brooklyn.
But in Ann Arbor, the organization faced a
similar crisis of credibility. Few teachers in the
area had heard of 826, and those who had were
skeptical that the organization could offer any-
thing more than what students received in the
classroom.
That started to change when 826 employ-
ees started visiting classrooms, according to
826michigan's executive director Amanda
Uhle.
"In almost every case we would go into one
classroom because one teacher really believed
in us and was really excited," Uhle said. "And
then it didn't take long for the other teachers to
be like, 'Well, wait a minute, this looks like it's
pretty helpful and pretty good."'
cont. on page 6B

Ann aroor
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