We're moving!

Our story, now twenty years old, has become quite the tome. A genre-defying work with twists and turns, a couple of well-resolved cliffhangers, and at least one plot hole. This summer, we embark on an exciting new section, and we’ll create some narrative tension up top by revealing it now: We’re moving to Ypsilanti.

When we opened in 2005, long-time supporters may remember, we were in the basement of an industrial building on South State Street in Ann Arbor. It was right by the highway, had ample parking, and was in between the two main communities we served: Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. The space was fantastic: labyrinthine walls we painted murals on led to various rooms, including the Inspiration Room: a small, lime green room with all manner of weird, wonderful curiosities glued to the walls that students could go into if they didn’t know what to write about. There was even an application students could fill out if they wanted to add an oddity to the collection. We laid out plans for the Monsters Union, Local 826; there was a lot of fur in the design, and, hindsight being 20/20, it’s for the best it never came to fruition. However would we have cleaned it?!

The space itself was fun, but there was no foot traffic. At that time, all 826s had whimsical storefronts to bring people into the space. We’d also started to do workshops at University Prep in Detroit and began planning to grow our work there. We had our first big plot twist: we decided to move to downtown Ann Arbor. We said that the monsters, who prefer basements to downtown storefronts, had negotiated a contract with Dr. Blotch, our crotchety editor, to stay on State Street. There was also something about a robot takeover, but with AI doing its thing in 2025, we’ll leave it at that.

ACTUAL IMAGES from 2005 in our State Street location!

September of 2007, we moved to Liberty Street, and in May of the following year, we opened the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair with an epic dance-off in the alley next to what once was Cafe Japon (and after a brief waffle interlude, became our wonderful neighbor, Spencer). Our work in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti grew, as did the tentacles (robotic arms!) we had reaching to Detroit. It was what we still think of as a boon time for our lil nonprofit. We had a small staff, but loads of programs. We were refining where and how we did our work, pivoting to largely Title 1 schools, and focusing much of our Washtenaw County-based work on Ypsilanti. Our north star was then, is now, and will always be: delivering delightfully zany, wildly ambitious, always imaginative, wholly-centered-on-our-students writing and literacy programs.

Those robotic arms spread and spread, as did our donor base, which allowed us, in 2015, to lease a big, beautiful space in Eastern Market in Detroit and open the Detroit Robot Factory. The space needed a lot of repair, and we were excited to do it via the biggest staff we’d ever had—15 people! We hosted wonderfully rambunctious field trips there, and got a teeny tiny bit of foot traffic to our shop on Saturdays. Growing after-school programs felt more challenging—we weren’t walking distance from any schools, and most of the students we were working with didn’t live close to our location. But we had a book-dispensing machine, a wall with the complete 826 steps to robot sentience (it was funny at the time!), a crew of extremely dedicated volunteers, and a serious passion for hearing the stories of young people in the City of Detroit.

And then the pandemic happened. 

Our programs all moved online. We had to lay off a handful of staffers. The remaining staff pivoted so many times it felt as if we were spinning in circles. Here’s where the story takes a sad, dramatic turn: as with many things, for 826michigan, the pandemic was not without its casualties. We had to give up the expensive, largely empty-of-people space in Detroit. Emptying out the space while simultaneously dreaming about “what might have been” was, frankly, awful.

Post-pandemic, how we viewed our work felt different. We saw, in a new way, how very necessary our programs were. And we saw new ways to do them. We refined our focus. We stopped doing After-school Tutoring (too general) and pivoted to After-school Writing Labs (teach what we know: how to get young people excited about reading and writing!) and more in-school programs. Although we loved it, with resources limited, we stopped putting precious dollars and volunteer hours into the robot shop, and instead allocated those important resources into our programs. We decided to work exclusively with Title 1 schools—students who, post-pandemic, were in great need of engaging, fun, free writing and literacy workshops. And then the best thing of all happened: the numbers of students we reached each year increased . . . by a lot. We went from 3,500 one year to 4,200 the next. It was 826 magic.

And now—suddenly—we are here. Some things here remain very much the same as they were twenty years ago. Diversity, equity, and inclusion have always been the very heart of what we do, and always will be. We continue to, as we always have, serve K-12 students and support teachers and administrators. We’ve pivoted many times over the last two decades, but we still have our north star. 

We also see so much opportunity ahead of us. We’ve partnered with Eastern Michigan University in various ways for essentially our entire existence. Many generations of EMU students have made possible many of the books we’ve published over the years, and we’ve been supported in ways big and small by professors, administrators, and university resources. When they offered to house us in their College of Education, we knew the time was right. It’s a new place for us, but also so familiar; we’ve got many partners and friends at the university, and we’re delighted to be so close not only to the people educating educators, but to those teachers-in-training, who can learn so much from our students (and vice versa). We’re excited for all the Ypsilanti Community School classes who will get to take field trips onto EMU’s campus and into the wild, wacky, 826y space we’ll create there. And of course, our reclusive, mooncat-owning, mysterious editor Dr. Blotch will move with us, continuing ever-present in our field trips, road shows, and after-school programs. 

We’ll continue to grow our work in Detroit, and are in talks to have a similar space there in the near future as well. We’re partnering with our great friends at the Ann Arbor District Library to continue our exact same roster of Ann Arbor-based programs at library branches. There is, and we can’t say this loudly enough, SO MUCH TO BE EXCITED ABOUT with this new section of the book of 826michigan. We are well on our way to reaching our goal of serving 25,000 new student writers by 2030. We hope you’ll find your own meaningful way to join us during this transition. 

Stop by our moving party on July 14 from 5-7 p.m. and ensure you have every OMNIBUS volume, or purchase one and round out your collection. Join our Executive Director Megan Shuchman for coffee on 7/11 at 9:30 a.m. or cocktails on 7/21 at 5:30 p.m. to share a memory and sign one of the silver ceiling tiles from the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair Co. that we’ll be taking with us to EMU. All events held at 115 E. Liberty. Share a memory of our beloved old space via this Google Form—we’ll be pouring over these and sharing some favorites with our community at large.

THANK YOU to our amazing supporters! Our Spring Fundraising Drive made more than $3,000 over our stretch goal of $10,000, coming in at $13,118. Thank you for investing in our students!