Free After-School Tutoring and Homework Help for Students
826NYC works with volunteers from the New York area writing community, including editors, publishers, journalists and authors, as well as film directors, television producers and even radio hosts, to provide outstanding, high-quality educational programming to students in need, at no cost to the school, the students or their families.
About You
Section 1: You
First Name
Sarah
Last Name
Pollock
Website URL
Organization
Country
United States
Section 2: Your Organization
Organization Name
826NYC
Organization Website
Organization Phone
(718) 499-9884
Organization Address
372 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11215
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Organization Country
United States
Your idea
Name Your Project
Free After-School Tutoring and Homework Help for Students
Country and state your work focuses on
United States, NY
Describe Your Idea
826NYC works with volunteers from the New York area writing community, including editors, publishers, journalists and authors, as well as film directors, television producers and even radio hosts, to provide outstanding, high-quality educational programming to students in need, at no cost to the school, the students or their families.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
826NYC is a small non-profit that provides much needed literacy, writing and other English Language Arts learning support to public school teachers and students in the NYC area. We have 4 main programs to facilitate language-based education in our writing center and in schools across the city. Our programs include: In-Schools, where we provide teachers with support in their classrooms to publish projects they wouldn’t otherwise be able to accomplish, our Field Trips, in which we host visiting classrooms who learn about storytelling and leave with a book that they created. Workshops, which we provide in the evenings and on weekends (and during the weekday in the summer) for students to write stories, create films or work on other imaginative projects and lastly, After School Tutoring, wherein we provide homework assistance 4-5 days a week in two locations in Brooklyn.
Our After-School Tutoring program is unique to other programs because it is free and flexible. It is also unique in that it's success depends upon the surrounding community of writers, freelance artists and other professionals with flexible mid-day schedules. These people lend their time to help area students with their homework at our writing center. We are founded on the belief that every adult has something positive to contribute to a student's education and that one-on-one attention can create great leaps in learning.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
No
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
826NYC has had thousands of students come through its doors over the past 5 years. These students have participated in field trips, received homework help or worked on a book of short stories with our volunteers. Each of these students were impacted by their experience in our writing center and by receiving one-on-on attention from adults. Having their ideas heard and being listened to makes an immeasurable impact on a student that may otherwise not receive positive attention and support for his academic or creative efforts. But we consider our greatest impact to be when we successfully impart a love of writing and enthusiasm for learning. We have students that have attended our homework help program for years but had never taken a workshop with us. The workshops we offer range from plays to films to poetry, and all have a basis in creative writing. The students that attend our homework help program were not taking advantage of these classes and in an effort to correct that, we began offering creative workshops exclusively to students that attend our workshop. We offered these classes immediately following the homework help sessions and eliminated the deposit requirement for enrollment. By lowering the bar for access, we made it easy for students to sign up and join in the fun. Since December 2009, when we offered our first of these workshops, we have had more and more students participate, some signing up for any workshop they can. One student, S________, is a shy boy of 13 who would attend for homework help, but as an English Language Learning students, was self-conscious of writing skills and cautious of interacting with his fellow students. After participating in the first workshop, S_______ has blossomed into a remarkably social teenager! He takes every workshop he can, often with his younger sister or his friends. He chats easily with volunteers and staff. This is the greatest impact we have, and one we hope to bring to more students.
Problem
826NYC’s organizational mission is to inspire and motivate students to write, not only as a means of expression but to also ensure they are better prepared for the job skills they will require in the future. We believe schools are doing all they can with the current resources they have, but students are still not receiving adequate instruction to acquire the skill set they need to succeed in the 21st Century. The Carnegie Corporation of New York’s report on Adolescent Literacy estimates that “private industry now spends up to $3.1 billion (National Commission on Writing, 2004) per year to bolster the writing skills of entry level workers.” Students also miss out on learning fundamental social skills that come from working in arts or after-school programs like being able to "persist in goal-oriented activity, to seek help when needed, and to participate in and benefit from relationships." (How the Arts Help Children to Create Healthy Social Scripts, Brouillette, 2009). 826NYC aims to help New York City students attain these skills
Actions
We offer 4 main programs to promote writing and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. They are: Field Trips, Creative Workshops, In-Schools Support and After-School Tutoring. All of our programs are free and open to any student in New York City. We eliminate as many barriers as possible to reach as many students as we can.
Results
Through our programs, in the past year, we have completed thousands of hours of homework help, published hundreds of books and several DVDs, and taught more than 2,500 children the value of good writing skills.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
To grow 826NYC to reach as many students as possible, throughout the city, we would need more capital in order to expand our programming by hiring staff and creating additional locations for our services. This is the kind of support we are seeking currently in order to ensure our organizational longevity.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Though we get very far based on our volume of volunteers, 826NYC could not run exclusively as a volunteer organization. If we were to cease finding new sources for our operating income, 826NYC would possibly close its doors.
How many people will your project serve annually?
1001‐10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$1000 - 4000
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
No
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for more than 5 years
In what country?
United States, NY
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
No
If yes, provide organization name.
How long has this organization been operating?
Less than a year
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
No
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
The Brooklyn Public Library allows us space and access to bring our tutoring program and homework help to their Williamsburgh branch, allowing us to serve hundreds of students from the North Brooklyn and Queens area.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
We would need to first, attain necessary capital in order to hire more programmatic staff to serve our students. Second, we would need to be able to hire a management consultant to help us devise clear goals for our fiscal and board management. And finally, we need to expand our board to include more of the surrounding Brooklyn community we call home.
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
Our Free After-School Tutoring program was the first program we offered in 2004, the time of our incorporation. It was also the originating concept for the idea of 826 as an organization when 826 National founder Dave Eggers saw in the Mission District where he lived there were a great many of working and non-working adults with free time at the same hour the local middle schools let out for the day. Knowing the challenges that face a parent trying to check on a student’s homework late in the evening, Eggers thought it would be an easy solution to open a center where students could drop by and do their homework with the help of the adults in the neighborhood. Several years later 826 Valencia was founded and 2 years after that, 826NYC opened its doors.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Dave Eggers is a nationally known author and screenwriter. He is the founder of McSweeney's Publishing and 826National, the umbrella organization for all eight 826 chapters around the country.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Email from Changemakers
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
50 words or fewer
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 | 159 weeks ago Sarah Pollock said: Thanks Cynthia! I think that's a great idea - we've often wondered how to go about tracking progress in students with such a limited ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 159 weeks ago Cynthia Drayton said: Hi Sarah, You are doing much needed work and what a terrific program to model it after - I saw Dave Eggers TED presentation - ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 161 weeks ago Sarah Pollock updated this Competition Entry. |
| 167 weeks ago Sarah Pollock submitted this idea. |
