News  •

Our summer programs are in full swing!

Summer: a time of beat-the-heat techniques and activity-filled weeks. At 826 Valencia, that means summer camps to keep our students writing, learning, imagining, and engaged throughout the summer months. . This summer was an unusual one, with all programs happening online. But we still managed to have a ton of fun with our students and tackle so many creative projects!

Our elementary school programs hit the ground running at the end of June. In our Tenderloin summer program, we lead 43 students from the neighborhood in a a different project each week: topics ranged from writing collaborative stories about the importance of speaking up and compromise, to writing color poems and creative recipes. 

Middle School students in our Exploring Leadership Summer Camp embarked on an adventure across creative mediums. They heard from guest speakers—like Jill Tucker from The San Francisco Chronicle and artist and photographer Broobs—and created everything from blog posts to home renderings of famous art. 

The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh (Recreated by Tyler)

In our High School Program, the Young Authors’ Workshop (YAW), students have been engaging with exciting lessons from expert guest instructors, scintillating writing workshop groups, and a series of rejuvenating wellness and self care activities. Students are hard at work honing their craft in a variety of writing styles, genres, and topics, including oral storytelling, anti-racism in comics, zine making, shape/concrete poetry, and so much more!

Next week, we’ll be joined by this year’s YAW teaching artist, Mariama J. Lockington, who will be leading the week’s lessons and coaching students as they choose and revise a piece of writing for publication in this summer’s chapbook. We can’t wait to see the final product! Stay tuned…

We’re so thankful for all of the amazing volunteers, tutors, guest speakers, and students who made this entire summer so fun and memorable! We can’t wait to see this energy and creativity carry into our fall programming.Â