So many of the 826 tutors have phenomenal credentials. Scores of us are professional writers — we love writing; we do it all day, we eat, sleep and breathe words. We love it so much we came in, wave after wave, to help kids in San Francisco learn to love it, too, and be good at it. Many of us, though, have not spent a huge amount of time around kids in a teaching capacity, and that’s why we were so grateful to Emily Helfgot, from Streetside Stories, who came in to talk to us last night. The team at Streetside works with kids every day, using storytelling to “build community and inspire kids to write, read, and tell their own stories.” Emily engaged us for three hours, telling and inspiring stories, encouraging interaction, and giving us remarkable examples of unique and ingenious tools they use to kindle and feed the creative fire all kids have.

For more information about Streetside, including teacher training, workshops, and publications of student anthologies, visit streetside.org.