Celebrating our amazing volunteers around the campfire

Spoiler alert: it was an imaginary campfire. And an amazing 100 Club party, celebrating our most dedicated volunteers!

It’s that time again! Time to say eight-hundred-and-twenty-six thanks to you, our amazing volunteers that help our students thrive with relentless dedication! Every year we get together to celebrate the spectacular folks of the 100 Club, a group of volunteers who have accrued the most service hours during the school year, and this party was one for the storybooks.

Nearly 150 people gathered at Cafe du Nord on a warm night to party in campfire style. From plaid shirts to snickerdoodle cookies to s’mores by the (fake!) fire, it felt like good old summer fun in February.

100 ClubThe event was designed for volunteers to mingle and have fun, engaging in many different activities like the people bingo or the timeline story, where folks could write about their 826 Valencia experiences and remember how their journey as volunteers began. After completing an activity, volunteers could get a token to enter a raffle with lots of cool gifts, including a Mission Pie gift card and tickets to our 2018 Bash (worth $500!)

But we couldn’t make it all easy. A storytelling activity put volunteers’ imaginations to the test with a write-your-own-ending challenge, where a character named Super Volunteer (also known as Super V.) had to overcome a hot chocolate ocean to bring more helpful creatures to the 826 Island. The most creative stories were awarded totally made up categories, ranging from the “silliest” to “most daring” to “most practical volunteer recruitment strategy”. Check out the stories here.

100 slices of pizza, an endless passion fruit cake, and of course YOU, made our night a huge success! We hope you had as much fun as we did celebrating everyone who makes our work possible every day, whether tutoring in our programs, illustrating our publications with whimsical designs, or just being an 826 supporter. If you’re new to the organization and are considering volunteering with us, we encourage you to sign up today! We can’t wait to toast to you at our next 100 Club event.

Thanks to all of our partners (Bi-Rite, Miette, Dandelion Chocolate, Little Star Pizza, Jane, Millennium Cafe, Mission Cheese, Mission Pie, and Tartine) who donated tons of yummy food that made our bellies very happy, and a huge thank you to all of our fantastic volunteers. You are the fire that brings us all together in the San Francisco fog.

See you next year!