by Trevor Crown, Senior Manager of Volunteer Innovation & Assessment

For the six years before I took on my current role at 826LA, I got to know this organization in the same way you have: as a volunteer. I showed up at Echo Park on Thursday nights during the school year and sat at whichever table Pedro told me to, trying not to shudder visibly if he pointed to Math or Science. Every once in a long while, I felt like a shining beacon of benevolent writerly wisdom, helping a student navigate a paper–not writing it for them, crucially–that would at worst get them a B-plus and at best serve as a model for future assignments. Far more often, however, I sat. 

I sat while they did their homework, which they either didn’t need help with or refused to admit they needed help with, no matter how frequently I asked. I sat while they journaled and ate fruit snacks. If they were finished with all assignments and creative writing, I sat while they drew impressively realistic cars on printer paper. 

Of course this wasn’t always the case, and not all my fellow volunteers did as much sitting as I did. Some, like Trevor Worthy (who drove up every week from Long Beach) and Kristina Gsell (an invaluable math tutor in a writing organization), seemed somehow to spend every second of tutoring either expertly helping students with urgent work or engaging them in inspiring conversations they would no doubt remember for years to come. Those two continue to carry whole sessions with their constancy and enthusiasm; they each deserve their own separate blog post. 

But over the years, I came to realize that sitting has its own unique value. A professor of mine once called the bad writing we do at the start of a story, “The water it takes to warm the tap.” Meaning: if you write three paragraphs and only keep the third, you can still appreciate that it wouldn’t have come if not for the first two. By sitting and waiting and listening closely, even on nights when you don’t feel you’ve contributed any brilliant insight, you–a faithful 826LA volunteer–see to it that you’re ready when the opportunity for that insight does arrive. And it will. It always does, once you’ve warmed the tap.

By sitting with students–being present in the most literal sense–you also encourage them. You let them know that when they do need help, you’ll be there to provide it, which nudges them toward working up to that point instead of avoiding the project altogether. Your sitting tells them, “There’s a bridge across the ravine ahead. You don’t have to build it yourself.”

If I’m allowed another quote, I’ll invoke one of our students, Abraham, who asked me if the people helping out at tutoring got paid to do it. I said no, that they were volunteers, which surprised him because, as he said, “I know everyone’s life is as complicated as mine.” 

So in addition to the singular brightness and writing-specific acumen you bring to every session, I want to thank you, on behalf of our organization, for sitting. Without you, we would disappear. We recognize that any given day you’ve shown up for these young minds might also have been an especially hard one at a demanding job, or the same day you’ve received some particularly distressing phone call. We recognize, in short, that your life is complicated, and we are forever grateful that you nevertheless slap on a name tag and do the simple good of sitting beside our students.