We toured the press box and broadcasting rooms and checked out years of historical memorabilia on the park’s club level. After a runaway win against the Braves, we headed out onto the field for Sunday’s Kids Run the Bases—preceded by a chance encounter with Lou Seal!

We all went home and showered our moms with praise for allowing us to spend Mother’s Day with our favorite team. Go Giants!

For more photos of the visit, check out our Facebook page.

For an entire semester, eleventh graders at San Francisco International High School worked with 826 Valencia tutors as they wrote, revised, and shaped a collection from their essays. On Friday, they will hold them in their hands in book form for the very first time.

SFIHS is a high school specially designed for students who have recently immigrated to the United States, and the essays in The Enter Question cover a wide variety of topics including the challenges of communicating in a new language, the courage it takes to ask for help, and the joy in meeting new people from all over the world.

You will be able to pick up a copy of The Enter Question in the Pirate Supply Store after the release of the book on Friday, and they’ll be available online soon afterward!

We’ll also host a VIP reception (11:30 to 12:00 PM) at the St. Regis prior to lunch, where you can meet the stars of our event, director and screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola and indie rocker Thao Nguyen. VIP tickets, which include admission to the luncheon, are currently on sale, at $1,000 per ticket.

With exciting guests and a film-and-music-inspired program, you’ll want to buy your tickets soon. Don’t miss out on the most fun you’ll have this spring!

Whether poems are constantly pouring from your fingers or writing one seems too hard, this workshop with poet Vickie Vertiz will be a fun way to pen a poem and leave with it in a beautiful book! You’ll write about your wishes, dreams, and innermost thoughts to produce a single perfect poem, which you’ll then put in a little handmade book, and voila! You’re a self-published poet.

Please note that this workshop will take place across the street from 826 Valencia at ScholarMatch – a beautiful, sunny place perfect for getting the creative juices flowing.

I have always enjoyed working with children. Becoming a parent gave me the chance to work with my own daughter and her classmates from daycare through elementary school. At Jean’s daycare center, some of the caregivers were from the “Foster Grandparent” program, and I said to myself, “I want to do that some day.” My involvement there led to five years on the board of that childcare center and to being co-chair for three years of a major fundraiser.  Once Jean was in school, I became a hyperactive volunteer. That led to working for ten years for another parent in that weird world: the textbook industry. Read more about David.

In 2005, I began volunteering two afternoons a week in the after-school program at 826 Valencia. I’ve had a great deal of fun working with the kids and a lot of pleasure in watching them grow up. Two girls I’ve worked with since they were in fifth grade are heading off to college next fall. I’m very proud of them, and of many other kids I’ve worked with.

I’ll add a few other facts about myself. I’m about to go east to attend my fiftieth reunion at Harvard. I was there as an undergraduate, and again as a graduate student, earning a Ph.D. in English and American literature. After teaching awhile, I followed my wife’s career to San Francisco. (She was a theatrical lighting designer, specializing in dance lighting.) I worked for some time as a freelance writer, publishing quite a few short books; then I worked as a freelance editor, dealing with whatever came along. I had fun being a copy editor for Red Herring Magazine during the dot-com boom: everyone should be part of a boom once in a lifetime (but only once).

Getting back to children, my grandson is heading toward his third birthday. I look forward to seeing him reach the age of the kids I’ve worked with at 826 Valencia.

We are looking for a dedicated group of tutors who can commit to working with students on their monologues, short plays, and essays about theater that they write once a week from January through May. Classes always meet on Friday mornings. This is the second of two groups, and you can sign up for one or the other or both.

While students work with 826 Valencia tutors, they also take acting classes with American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.). As a tutor, you will have the occasional chance to watch A.C.T. performances with the students and watch their own work come to life in a May performance.

With questions about this project, contact Director of Education Emilie Coulson at emilie@826valencia.org.

We are looking for a dedicated group of tutors who can commit to working with students on their monologues, short plays, and essays about theater that they write once a week from January through May. Classes always meet on Friday mornings. This is the second of two groups, and you can sign up for one or the other or both.

While students work with 826 Valencia tutors, they also take acting classes with American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.). As a tutor, you will have the occasional chance to watch A.C.T. performances with the students and watch their own work come to life in a May performance.

With questions about this project, contact Director of Education Emilie Coulson at emilie@826valencia.org.

We are looking for a dedicated group of tutors who can commit to working with students on their monologues, short plays, and essays about theater that they write once a week from January through May. Classes always meet on Friday mornings. This is the first of two groups, and you can sign up for one or the other or both.

While students work with 826 Valencia tutors, they also take acting classes with American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.). As a tutor, you will have the occasional chance to watch A.C.T. performances with the students and watch their own work come to life in a May performance.

With questions about this project, contact Director of Education Emilie Coulson at emilie@826valencia.org.

We are looking for a dedicated group of tutors who can commit to working with students on their monologues, short plays, and essays about theater that they write once a week from January through May. Classes always meet on Friday mornings. This is the first of two groups, and you can sign up for one or the other or both.

While students work with 826 Valencia tutors, they also take acting classes with American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.). As a tutor, you will have the occasional chance to watch A.C.T. performances with the students and watch their own work come to life in a May performance.

With questions about this project, contact Director of Education Emilie Coulson at emilie@826valencia.org.

Congratulations to our friends at Office, and thank you for your generosity! See all the photos and other One Show winners here.