826CHI offers the following programs, free of charge, to students from in and around the Chicago area:

Drop-in tutoring
826CHI assigns free tutors, Mondays through Thursdays from 3:00 until 5:30, to students who come to our center after school. It is our belief that great advancements in English skills and comprehension can be made within hours if students are given concentrated help from knowledgeable tutor-mentors. 826CHI is excited to offer tutoring to English language learners as well.

Field Trips
At 826CHI, we want to help area teachers get their students excited about writing while also helping students to better express their ideas. We encourage teachers to plan to bring their classes to our site for field trips during the school day. A group of tutors will be available during every field trip, whether we are helping to generate new material or revising already written work. Click here for more information or to plan a field trip. Or, view our scheduled field trips.

Workshops
826CHI has a broad base of tutors who are experts in many different areas of writing. Our tutors are skilled in journalism, song and jingle writing, screenplay and comic book production, radio broadcasting and a variety of other subject matters. These tutors are now offering a variety of free workshops during our newest session.

In-Schools Project
The strength of our volunteer base allows us to provide in-school support for teachers in Chicago area schools: we send volunteers into select, local schools to support teachers with projects in their own classrooms. If you are a teacher and your students could use additional one-on-one help with any sort of writing project, 826CHI may be able to dispatch an enthusiastic batch of tutors to your school. 826CHI’s in-schools projects usually focus on CPS schools and students in grades 4 and up. If you are a teacher and have a project in mind — Fill out this form to get started.

Publishing
826CHI believes that the quality of student work is greatly enhanced when students are allowed to share their writing with an authentic audience. Therefore, we are committed to publishing student work and will use professional editors and designers in our publishing efforts in order to allow students’ work to shine.

Our Store
Here in Chicago we are surrounded by secret agents, none of whom have a proper, private place to shop. This has changed. 826CHI and the Boring Store offer secret agent supplies in a most secretive way. The Boring Store, is open everyday from 12-6. All proceeds from the store go directly toward supporting our programs.

826CHI Book Club
We are pleased to announce our new reading group, led by the incomparable Patrick Shaffner. To learn more, click here.