National Public Radio, July 4, 2005
Ayala Ben-Yehuda’s NPR story on Rhythm of the Chain (4:28; requires RealAudio)

The Orange County Register, Sunday, June 26, 2005
Jackson gets a lesson in teamwork

Phil Jackson has one last thing from his unemployed life to which he must attend, a date he set six weeks ago and will now keep. As the Detroit Pistons and San Antonio Spurs are getting going, Jackson is in the car enroute to Animo Inglewood Public Charter High School for a book-release party (no, not that book). ¶ Back when his idle days were much longer — filled with meditation, elaborately prepared garden-fresh meals and more meditation — Jackson embarked on a project that would enable him to coach a team while not officially coaching a team. ¶ He became mentor to a group of Animo Inglewood students, connecting with them through 826LA, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center in Venice, and giving them the theme for a book toward which each student (some excerpted below) would contribute an essay. ¶ It was an easy theme for Jackson to choose, because it’s the one that has ruled his entire life, the one whose steady swing has hypnotically brought him back to the Lakers again: teamwork.

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LA Weekly, June 3-9, 2005
“I Wonder Why All Kids Don’t Go to 826”

Welcome to Monkey Village. Population: lots of monkeys. ¶ Monkey Village is a country that you have never heard of. It has its own flag and its own laws. The flag has monkeys on it, and the laws boil down to this: “Everything in there is wiggly. Except the monkeys.” The law was written by Adriel Navarro, Monkey Village’s creator, an 8-year-old boy who attends Broadway Elementary in Venice. Adriel has also created cartoon heroes you have never heard of, “The Heartanator” and “Pencil Boy.” ¶ On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Adriel is announcing his new country in the bustling second-floor idea den that is 826LA, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center tucked into the back of the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) on Venice Boulevard. Scattered around the Pottery Barn–rustic, wood-beamed room — its book-lined walls painted a warm, deep blue — are 14 other kids Adriel’s age, local Latino elementary schoolers scribbling away at their homework, thinking through chess moves, refueling on Red Vines and writing on the room’s sextet of Macintosh G5s.

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Flaunt Magazine, April 2005
Class Action

Community is not dead in Los Angeles — it’s thriving. Case in point: the volunteer rush to help McSweeney’s publisher Dave Eggers renovate 826LA, the third installment of his creative writing think tank for kids. ¶ San Francisco, 2002: Eggers opens a tutoring center for kids that fulfills an overlooked need in America’s education system. He calls it 826 Valencia, same as its address. Donations and grants primarily fund this not-for-profit undertaking that is chiefly staffed by volunteers. Their mission? Provide one-on-one attention to improve kids’ writing skills. Free drop-in tutoring is offered for basics like spelling tests, (college entrance) essays, and book reports, along with a packed schedule of workshops on subjects like playwriting, comic book writing, and songwriting. ¶ 826 is a hit. During the fall 2004 academic quarter, a staggering 7,000 student-tutor connections are made between 826’s Valencia campus and its local school outreach program. The numbers continue to swell.

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The Los Angeles Times, Monday, December 6, 2004
A Heartfelt Work of Staggering Good

It’s a clear, brisk night in Venice. Clear enough to see not just the stars but to see if they are aligned just right — or so hopes Dave Eggers. ¶ From his perch on the porch of a second-story loft at the home of screenwriter Melissa Mathison, the author can keep watch on both the skies and the goings-on below: the murmur of agents, journalists, musicians, activists, some cushy Hollywood money all huddled around the food and drink by the turquoise strip of a lap pool. ¶ Eggers has landed in L.A. for a couple of sure-to-be-sleep-deprived days. Not for a reading or a panel discussion but to shake a few trees. For matters important enough to don a dark blazer over faded jeans and transform himself from idiosyncratic author-editor to passionate pitchman.

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