LOS ANGELES — Not many 6 to 18 year olds can can say they’ve been published.
But there are more than 300 in Los Angeles that can can claim the title of published writer thanks to 826LA.
Since 2005, the nonprofit has supported students throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District and around the country, helping them build confidence as creative and expository writers.
“At the heart of what we do is bring volunteers to work with students one-on-one,” said Marisa Urrutia Gedney, director of in-schools programs and college access. In many under-resourced and overpopulated classrooms, she said, it’s difficult for teachers to give their students personal attention, especially when it comes to their writing.
“Writing is difficult for anyone of any age, and we tell the students that. It takes a certain level of confidence to take what’s in your heart and in your head and write it down,” she said.
Executive Director
Joel Arquillos
The intimate support “really helps students share their ideas so they have more confidence after they finish a writing assignment.”
Through its numerous free programs, more than 9,000 economically disadvantaged students in L.A. are taught how to write everything from poems, chapbooks and short films to stories, magazines and comic books during its weekend workshops.
During the week, students can take advantage of after-school and evening tutoring at two of 826LA’s writing locations in Echo Park and Mar Vista. There, volunteers help students with writing, reading and homework in all subjects.
“Our volunteers also go to schools where they work with teachers directly in the classrooms,” Gedney said. Because it’s not always possible for students to take a field trip to one of 826LA’s sites, volunteers drop into classrooms to support teachers with projects and provide students more one-on-one attention for writing assignments.
As for the many high school students working on their college applications, volunteers offer them help with their personal statements. This college-readiness work, Gedney said, is critical to what the nonprofit does.
“Personal statements help students write about their triumphs and trials,” she said. While students’ college applications show their academic successes, they don’t offer a glimpse into the realities of their lives.
By guiding them through their essays, they’re making “college writing more equitable.”
In 2013, the organization decided to extend this idea of equitability to South L.A., where they opened the Writers Room at Manual Arts High School.
There, students have a creative space where they can explore their writing voices and get college access support. It now serves more than 700 students every year and, as a result of this added support, more seniors are getting accepted into four-year schools.
As the nonprofit steadily grows, so has students’ enthusiasm for writing.
“So many times, once we publish a book of student writing, kids often say they want to be a writer. They say they want to be keep writing and get published,” Gedney said.
Kids frequently carry their published writing in their backpacks all year and show their teachers and classmates the work they’re so proud of, she added.
And this zest for writing that 826LA sees in its students is an energy it hopes to expand to more kids.
“Our hope is to increase capacity and bring in more volunteers into all our programs and centers to support more than 9,000 students a year,” Gedney said.
“We are always excited when people take interest in the work we do because it’s rewarding, exciting and fun.”
INFORMATION BOX
Executive Director: Joel Arquillos
Years in operation: 13
Number of employees: about 24
Annual budget: $1,744,809
Location: 1714 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, 90026
LOS ANGELES WAVE — It’s pretty cool to have an international star athlete pay a visit to your school. It’s downright awesome if you can get more than one world-class athlete to show up and hang out with you while you’re getting your exercise in.
The students at Trinity Street Elementary School looked like they were having the times of their young lives when Olympic star Rosalyn Bryant (now Rosalyn Clark) and Paralympic gold medal winner Breanna Clark made their way to the playground on a brisk December morning to help them participate in some physical fitness activity.
The goal, like all the visits that the mother and daughter engage in, is to bring more awareness of the importance of moving, eating right and enduring physical activity. Bryant and Clark are just two of the vessels that bring that message from the Ready, Set, Gold! program, which is in 55 schools around the city of Los Angeles. The mother and daughter tandem worked in sports.
Bryant competed and won a silver medal in the 4 by 400 meter relay at the 1976 Olympics. For four straight years, Bryant (1976, 1977, 1978, 1979) was the top U.S. 400 meter female runner in the country. She was also America’s No.1 in that race in 1983, according to Track & Field News.
Forty years after her mother found Olympic glory in Montreal, Clark stamped her own name on the international scene when she became the 2016 Paralympics 400-meter champion.
Trinity Street Elementary School Principal Jorge Villalobos said Ready, Set, Gold! has been instrumental in helping increase the rates of student participation.
“The Ready, Set, Gold! program … I wasn’t here when it was established; the principal prior was the one that established the program, but we’ve noticed the increase in the participation,” Villalobos said. “We have a runner’s club in the afternoon. We have about 150 kids that stay after school in the runner’s club and do that Monday through Friday.
“A lot of that has to do with the motivation that the Olympians give the kids.”
Villalobos seemed to get motivated himself on this particular day as he jumped rope, ran through cones and did other drills that his students participated in. Bryant and Clark are hoping their stature as world-class track and field athletes will have some kind of positive affect on the students they visit with through Ready, Set, Gold!
For Bryant, this sort of thing is old hat for her. She has been a longtime advocate for youth wellness and has been a part of Ready, Set, Gold! for quite some time.
“I started when it first started,” Bryant said. “I’ve been with the program since it first started 10 years ago.”
Bryant, who now works for the Los Angeles Police Department, said that extra push for students to be more wellness-conscious is essential.
“It’s amazing because these kids need it, especially these days,” Bryant said. “They need people talking to them about health, about good nutrition, about staying in shape, because all of it goes hand-in-hand to become a healthy adult, and to keep it going as life continues.”
Clark, who is autistic, said the mission for what she and her mother are working to achieve is pretty straight forward.
“My experience is brand new and wonderful,” Clark said. “The joy I get is telling them about nutrition, about health, also about staying in shape.”
Bryant, who served as Clark’s coach up to the Paralympics, has a special of her own in that she is certainly proud of what her daughter has been able to achieve, despite the hurdles that laid in front of her.
“It’s very exciting to have my daughter be an Olympian, especially seeing that she has autism,” Bryant said. “This is something I could never have dreamed of, I could never imagine it. So, for it to be taking place, it’s just super.”
WAVE NEWSPAPERS — It was several years ago that Lubna Hindi realized the impact she and Step Up — a nonprofit that empowers young girls in under-resourced communities –– were having on the kids they served.
Hindi was a ninth grade instructor for the organization at the time, and the first class she ever taught was now wearing their caps and gowns, excitedly awaiting to discover what the future might hold for them.
The salutatorian got up, walked to the stage and in his speech to family, friends, peers and instructors, he talked about the memories he created at his school, and he talked about Step Up. He said that his female peers in the program taught him about feminism and what it means to be a man. When he was done and the valedictorian, who was going to Columbia University, stepped up to the stage, she opened up about what Step Up meant to her.
“It was one of those moments that made me realize that Step Up actually works and that the curriculum is making an impact,” said Hindi, the nonprofit’s manager of external relations and individual giving.
Founded in 1998, Step Up came into fruition after Kaye Kramer found out her mother was suffering from breast cancer. Kramer started looking for a support system and in that search, she invited 30 of her female friends and colleagues to her home. And it was there, in her living room, that Kramer found the sense of community she was seeking that would come to be known as Step Up.
“We create brave and safe spaces for girls to thrive in,” Hindi said of the after-school programs in the nonprofit’s partnering high schools. The curriculum, she said, focuses on not only the social and emotional growth of girls from ninth to 12th grade in underrepresented communities, but also on empowering them to be confident and college-bound.
Since its first office opened in Los Angeles, Step Up has become a nationally recognized organization with offices in New York, Chicago, Dallas and more, and its programs are found in dozens of high schools throughout the country.
Once or twice a week, trained Step Up instructors provide two-hour after-school sessions to high school girls in dozens of schools all over the country.
The sessions follow the organization’s youth development and grade-specific curriculums. The ninth and 10th grade confidence curriculums, for example, focus on identity, relationships, voice, visions, action and expression.
The 11th graders center more on college readiness and career exploration with the Pathways to Professions program. Those in it get the chance to participate in the Bay Area College Tour, which, as Hindi said, is about giving college-bound girls the opportunity to see themselves in university spaces so they understand that they deserve to be there.
As for high school seniors, also known as the Young Luminaries, their curriculum includes monthly Saturday group mentoring where they get help with college applications, career preparation and are set up with summer internships.
Step Up currently has about 700 girls enrolled in its L.A. chapter in schools from Huntington Park to South L.A., and Hindi hopes to see the numbers grow locally and nationally.
“In five years, we hope to see [Step Up] in more cities and in every major market,” she said. “In 10 years, we want to be a nationally recognized organization … where people see Step Up’s value and understand the work we do.”
INFORMATION BOX
CEO/president: Jenni Luke
Years in operation: 20
Number of employees: 14 in L.A.; 50 nationally
Annual budget: $1 million in L.A.; $4 million nationally
LOS ANGELES WAVE — It’s pretty cool to have an international star athlete pay a visit to your school. It’s downright awesome if you can get more than one world-class athlete to show up and hang out with you while you’re getting your exercise in.
