New Volunteer Orientation Guide
Volunteers are at the core of our service to students. At 826 Boston, you don’t need to be an expert writer to be an excellent volunteer. However, you do need a deep belief in the students we serve and an eagerness to learn together. The majority of our students are youth of color, and we especially seek volunteers who identify as Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, Latinx, LGBTQ+, and/or multilingual so that our volunteer base better reflects the diversity of the students we serve.
Volunteer tutors have a range of skills, experiences, and expertise, but share these core values:
826 Boston will provide initial and ongoing training for tutors on how to best:
Why we need you
We know that great leaps in learning can happen when students have individualized support from caring adults. Join our network of 700+ volunteers to provide tutoring one-on-one and in small groups. Every volunteer can make a difference.
Scroll to the top to continue to section two, About 826 Boston.
826 Boston is a nonprofit writing, tutoring, and publishing organization where students in grades K-12 and beyond can share their stories, amplify their voices, and develop as leaders in school and in life.
We believe that great leaps in learning can happen with individualized attention and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success. We offer more than 35,000 hours of tutoring to more than 3,000 students each year. We couldn’t do it without the generous support of our volunteers’ time and skills.
At 826 Boston, we honor and actively work toward diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across our organization. We are committed to centering the voices of the students who we serve, to creating inclusive spaces, and to incorporating feedback from our community into our decision-making processes. Our DEI lens is always evolving through the courageous conversations in which we participate and the relationships that we build through our work and service. We strengthen our cultural competency through experience, training, and feedback, which informs the development of all new organizational practices and goals and the evaluation of all existing procedures.
826 Boston is dedicated to providing a platform for student advocacy through writing and publishing opportunities. In our work and mission, we are committed to dismantling white supremacy culture by recognizing that we are complicit in systems of racism and oppression. We will work to hold ourselves accountable in addressing these harmful structures and behaviors.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that the land where the 826 Boston center, offices, and partner schools are located is on the original homelands of the Massachusett Tribe. We honor and pay our respects to the ancestral bloodline of the Massachusett Tribe and their descendants who are still inhabiting this land on which we work and serve today.
Learn more about 826 Boston’s mission and impact.
Scroll to the top to continue to section three, Volunteer Opportunities.
826 Boston’s free programming supports Boston Public School students of all ages, on a wide range of subjects, both in and out of the classroom. Learn more about each of our programs and check out our Writers’ Room partner schools.
Scroll to the top to continue to section four, Next Steps.
Next steps to volunteer with 826 Boston:
New Tutor Training Registration Form:
Google Meet links will be sent 24 hours prior to your training session. In-person trainings will be held at our Tutoring Center, located at 3035 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02119.
…read more about the role of 826 Boston in the community.
…read students’ work.
…follow us on social media.
has allowed me to develop into someone who doesn’t let the fear of the unknown stop them from achieving their true potential.”
– Ayan, 826 Boston student
