Have You Even Tried It?
Written by the students of 826LA's Write On! After School program in the fall of 2023.
When we think of food, we think of community. Especially during this time of the year. Families and friends coming together to share a meal. Exchanging dishes new and traditional. Exchanging gifts. Exchanging stories.The cornucopia: that horn overflowing with a diversity of foods, symbolizing abundance and goodness. The satisfaction of feeling full.
Like any good recipe, our Write On! After School program is a mixture of the best ingredients:
Our students: our raison d'existence. Some coming back for their seventh year in a row, others brand new to the program. Their creativity is the main ingredient.
Our students’ families: our partners in the program. Taste-testers, letting us know what’s working and what’s needed.
Our volunteers: our sou-chefs. The support system on which our program is built.
Our UCLA College Corps members and interns: A new ingredient this year, a game-changer, the secret sauce to our success, supporting the program in more ways than we could count.
And our programming staff: the cooks in the kitchen, keeping the stoves of imagination burning, the creativity steadily simmering but never boiling over.
With all these ingredients, we focused on how they would come together, building our community one session at a time. We did this through soccer games on the pack patio, over gossip sessions about the latest drama at school, by discovering our shared love of anime, jenga tournaments, and uno and uno-reverse interplay. And through it all, there was food.
Whether it was our daily snacks of Pockys or Gummies, or special treats like a food tasting of mole negro and tzatziki, our community and creativity was powered by food. Even our passionate food debates between Team Takis and the Limon Lays Legion brought us together. When manuscript deadlines loomed, it was double snack days that got us through that final push.
It seems appropriate then that the theme of this anthology, the culmination of our students’ writing efforts over the course of the semester, should be food. Just as we connect with each other over food, so too do we build community through the stories we share. In this anthology, you will find reviews of homemade mac and cheese, a dramatized debate between the franchises of In-N-Out and Burger King, and daydreams about ice cream. Mouth-watering stories and stories that will make you lose your appetite. Reflecting feelings, opinions, and adventures (or misadventures) we can all connect over.
Consider these stories then as those leftovers you excitedly find in the fridge the next day. Our semester has come to an end, but we share with you the results of the dish we made with our ingredients. This is what we bring to the table. Our gift to you. Our stories.
How will they taste to you? In what ways will you connect to what you find within? Who will you share it with? It’s food for thought.
Have you even tried it yet? It’s time to dig in.