Friday, March 19, 2010

826

If you're ever in the Seattle Area and find yourself needing to leave the planet in a hurry, you should know that the Greenwood Space Travel Supply Company is here to help. (NASA take note.)  If your pirate ship runs aground in San Francisco and need to repair and refit your crew of scalawags, the Pirate Supply Store is ready to get you back on your way.  If you are a superhero whose secret identity if fraying, the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company stands ready to assist.  Similar suppliers stand ready to act as quartermasters to the extremes of society, whether you are a time traveler stranded in LA, a mad scientist looking for that final piece to complete your giant robot, or if you're not a secret agent not looking to stand out in Chicago.  Even if you're utterly convinced that Bigfoot is a Redsocks fan, we can hook you up.

What do these links in an unlikely supply chain have in common?  Each is the local front for the 826 Project, a non-profit effort to provide tutoring in reading and writing across the country.  The 826 Project was co-founded by Dave Eggars, that brightest of American literary lights.

If you have some writing chops and a hankering to volunteer, the 826 folks are an excellent place to look.  I work four days a week in a writing center at a local college and I can't help but wonder when I talk to the tutors about the challenges their students face what a little help earlier in life could have done.

I just found out that last month, the 826 Project was awarded the Henson Honors for thier contributions to society.  An award well merited, I think.

Click around through those links.  You never know when you might need a Black Hole Starter Kit or a banana cell phone.  Heck, everyone needs a gallon of immortality around the house.  And how often have you invested in something like that and had the money go to a good cause?

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Pages to Type is a blog about books, writing and literary culture (with the occasional digression into coffee and the care and feeding of giant robots).