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Bigfoot Lends a Hand

From WBUR's April 10 feature on 826 Boston:

ANDREA SHEA: While the curiosities will pull in some money for the non-profit organization, its real mission lies behind a secret door.

Sound of secret door sliding open and then the busy writing room

ANDREA SHEA: This is 826 Boston...a cozy but rigorous tutoring center for area school students, ages 6-18. It's one of seven novel storefronts created by Dave Eggers, author of the best-selling memoir, 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.' The 826 shops in other cities have different themes: pirates, superheroes, time travel and outer space.

Read the feature transcript here.

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Visit the Bigfoot Research Institute: Sasquatch Symposium Fundraiser for 826

From Yelp's "This Weekly Yelp," April 8:

cherie c. says: I assure you is entirely for real. The leeches and the crabs are already in residence at the center. I've seen the ballet! Check out the site for bios on all of the speakers. This event will be SO much fun!

Kabir "Plaidypus" H. says: Do we get to eat the loser of the giant crab fight?

Read Yelp's pre-event blog here!

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Bigfoot in Boston?
Storefront is more than meets the eye

From a March 20 feature in The Boston Bulletin:

Need a sampling of Bigfoot toenails, a Yeti hairball or even a Chupacabra claw? Don’t worry; the GBBRI’s got ’em. They even come with certificates of authenticity!

...[But] the GBBRI is only the sizzle that sells the steak.It is one of 826’s unique store fronts that get people in the door and helps provide funding for the real work 826 does for communities in six other cities.

Read the full article

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kids are people too

From an "On Our Radar" feature on the Not For Tourists website, posted February 25, 2008:

My grandfather was a teacher in the Roxbury School System for his entire career, and I can still remember how proud he was to help them learn. He also helped them learn awful jokes, but that’s a balanced education. I find myself in a position to follow in his footsteps a bit by volunteering at the latest chapter of 826 National, the non-profit organization dedicated to help students become better writers. 826 Boston opened just this past Fall 07 and is gearing up to offer free workshops, tutoring, homework assistance, English as a second language help, and even some publishing for all students, ages 6 to 17. The storefront is labeled The Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute because they’re opening a full Cryptozoology store, for all the Bigfoot and Creature of the Black Lagoon fans out there. How freaking cool is that?

Read the full feature here!

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Volunteer Here
From The Boston Globe's 2008 Best of the New:

Roxbury’s 826 Boston won’t open its cryptozoology supply store until this spring at the earliest, but the creative and expository writing center (an offshoot of 826 National, which began in San Francisco) is offering free writing workshops and one-on-one tutoring. In just a few months, it’s already served hundreds of MCAS prep-overloaded kids. The center, open to all area students, has recruited an impressive advisory board, including novelist Tom Perotta and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Even more impressive: its 250 volunteers. Join them.

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People Talking and Talking

From an interview with Dave Eggers and the Long Winters' John Roderick discussing the upcoming benefit for 826 Seattle in The Stranger, November 7, 2007:

EGGERS: ...I don't think we've ever had the same lineup for any two 826 shows. This one in Seattle will be very different than pretty much anything we've done. It'll be especially fun as long as Roderick doesn't screw anything up.

RODERICK: There's going to be comedy at this one, which will make a lot of my screwups seem intentional.

EGGERS: Eugene Mirman just did a benefit out in Boston for 826. He's hysterical; he did a great job.

Read the full interview here...

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Sci-Fi On The Side

From the Boston Globe's October 20, 2007, article on 826 Boston and the Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute "Sci-Fi On The Side":

A peculiar building in Egleston Square will open soon under an equally peculiar name: the Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute. Flanked by ordinary shops, its futuristic front already stands out on Washington Street where Roxbury meets Jamaica Plain. When its tall glass doors open, the sights inside will be stranger still. Sales clerks will hawk paranormal paraphernalia such as unicorn tears, and people dressed as scientists will busy themselves in apparent research at the city's center of cryptozoology, the study of creatures that may not be real. But things aren't always as they seem. The "cryptozoologists" will be volunteers in character; the specimens in jars of murky liquids, props. The entire sci-fi scene at 3035 Washington St. will be a facade for an imaginative, hands-on writing center called 826 Boston. 826 Boston opens to students next week for free weekly workshops held in an orange-walled room in back; the store will open in a few months.

Read more...

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Yetis in Egleston?

From The Jamaica Plain Gazette's October 5, 2007 feature on the local 826 writing center:

EGLESTON SQ.—If Sasquatch is considering taking up residence in Egleston Square anytime soon, he or she should not count on staying anonymous for long. Come November, if all goes well, the neighborhood will be home to the new Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Institute. So Bigfoot beware. 826 Boston, the new local chapter of a non-profit organization dedicated to helping students ages 6 to 18 with expository and creative writing, is moving in.

Read the more here...

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826 Boston inspires writing at BPS schools

From The Boston Banner's September 20, 2007 article on 826 Boston:

Two men stand just inside the entranceway of the building at 3035 Washington Street in Roxbury. They talk excitedly, exchanging ideas and gesturing to the bare, brightly colored walls.

Their subject, strangely enough, is cryptozoology, defined as “the study of evidence tending to substantiate the existence of, or the search for, creatures whose reported existence is unproved, such as the Abominable Snowman, Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster.”

To understand how this applies to 826 Boston, the new writing and tutoring center in Egleston Square, requires, well, a little imagination.

Full article here!

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A heartwarming tale of staggering genius

From the Boston Herald's September feature on 826 Boston

Once upon a time, in fact earlier this very summer, teens at English High in Jamaica Plain were asked to write urban fairy tales - and one is coming true right now.

A shiny new building in Egleston Square houses the seventh chapter of the nationwide nonprofit 826 Valencia creative writing program. The program, known here as 826 Boston, is the quirky brainchild of best-selling author Dave Eggers (“A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”) and his local team of writers, authors, teachers and volunteers.

More here

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Choose your own adventure

From the Boston Phoenix's March 2007 article about 826 Boston, "Choose your own adventure":

The sign outside 826 NYC, the Brooklyn-based branch of the nonprofit youth writing organization founded by Dave Eggers and Nínive Calegari in San Francisco in 2002, declares that it's home to a full complement of superhero supplies ... There's so much to look at, so many labels to read, that you almost forget to wonder where the classroom space is, where the kids actually learn and write. But then a woman your age, mid 20s, walks past you toward the back of the room to a wall of shelves holding yet more superhero supplies. She pulls at the shelves — a secret door! — and disappears, the shelves closing slowly behind her. Repeating her steps, you reopen the shelf-door and find a huge classroom with tables, desks, chairs, couches, tons of books, tons of light. No matter how cynical you are, no matter how much you malign McSweeney's or Eggers's do-gooding, you cannot help but smile here. To be a kid and have this place be all for you? Amazing. To hang out with these diminutive fantasists, as a barely grown-up volunteer, and help give their imaginations shape? Just as cool. And this fall, Boston is slated to become the seventh chapter under the 826 National umbrella.

Read the whole article here!

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