Cool way to help the schools

It's up to you how you handle this thing.

You can write letters seething with frustration with Seattle Public Schools. You can cite the school closures and the money problems, haul out WASL scores, and point out every flaw. Or, you can read your voters pamphlet, head to the polls today and choose from eight candidates seeking four seats on the Seattle School Board.

Or maybe you can get involved with 826 Seattle.

The Greenwood writing lab, founded by author Dave Eggers, not only welcomes help at its after-school program, it sends its volunteers right into the classrooms to sit beside students and see, firsthand, what's going on in the schools.

"Immediately, people realize that teachers are the same, the students are the same as ever," Eggers said Friday.

826 Seattle is celebrating its second year with "People Talking and Singing," a night of literary, comedic and musical shenanigans.

The event, at 7:30 Thursday at Town Hall, will include comedians Eugene Mirman and Todd Barry, New Yorker pop-music critic Sasha Frere-Jones and Geologic of Blue Scholars.

Proceeds will benefit 826 Seattle, which could use the money — it's growing fast. "So fast, it makes me nervous," said executive director Teri Hein. The program has 830 people waiting to volunteer, and 230 active volunteers who help some 35 kids through their homework every day. The seven 826 chapters in the country are named for the original chapter's address: 826 Valencia St. in San Francisco.

Other volunteers staff the program's front, The Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co.; supervise field strips to the writing lab; and coach students at John Marshall Alternative School through the publishing of a book of essays.

"We are clearly needed and wished for," Hein said. "Kids want to come, and parents want them to come."

And people want to volunteer. I think that's because it is the only thing we can really do to help the schools, short of casting a ballot, crafting cranky letters or making cupcakes.

"We want to bring the community into the schools whenever they want us," Eggers said. "Our tutors get to see a real classroom away from the headlines and the test scores, and concentrate on the actual one-on-one, shoulder-to-shoulder time with one student.

"And everyone comes away with their minds blown."

Let's not forget 826 Seattle's cool factor. Who wouldn't embrace a place where you can buy rocket fuel, ray guns and intergalactic peace treaties, and help someone get his homework done?

Plus, "People Talking and Singing" is more like a literary version of "Revenge of the Nerds." Artists who were no doubt terrorized in school get their just revenge, holding forth before a paying audience that only wishes it was so hip.

Last year's event featured Daniel Handler (also known as "Lemony Snicket"); the small and sorrowful Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields; and squeaky-voiced essayist Sarah Vowell, who administered a "buddy punch" to anyone making a $5 donation.

I paid up and took the hit. It was one way to handle this thing, do my part for the schools.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

That's what he calls her: October.