After the success of last year’s inaugural Buddy Day at Madison Country Day School, a day when older students are paired up to do activities with younger students, the tradition continued this semester with two Buddy Days on September 16 and November 25.
Buddy Day is a community building activity and an opportunity for students of different ages to learn and grow together. “Students who are big buddies get the chance to take on some leadership, and students who are little buddies … can remove a sense of fear about the big kids,” said Rebecca Polak, head of middle school.
“Essentially, we are our own school district. I know it’s small and that it’s just this one building, but this is an elementary school, middle school and a high school,” said Polak. These activities bring our small community together, she added.
“I wouldn’t know any high schoolers if we didn’t do Buddy Day,” Harriet ’34 said, whose older buddy is Donovan ’27. “I said ‘good job’ to him for [going to] state and the [acting in the] play,” Harriet said after the buddy day on November 25. She had heard about Lonsdale playing soccer in the state tournament and had watched him play Bobby Strong, a lead in MCDS’s high school production of “Urinetown.”
“Being an older buddy is important to me because I can clearly remember having an older buddy when I was in these younger grades,” said Lucy ’29, who had a similar collaboration at her previous school and joined MCDS in seventh grade.
“It feels very nostalgic to do these activities as the older buddy,” said Lucy, whose younger buddy is Emerson ’36. “My favorite buddy memory would probably be when we decorated and painted posters in groups,” she added.
Some students have had the same buddies for two years in a row and the relationships have deepened, said community coordinator Kayla Van Eperen, who organizes Buddy Day. “I think that the coolest thing was that students were already so comfortable with their buddy,” said Van Eperen. “They jumped right into activities and talked about what they did over the summer, and it just seems so much more relaxed than that very first meetup last year.”
Two more Buddy Days are scheduled this academic year: February 17, 2026, and May 19, 2026.
“I can’t wait to get to know my buddy, Emerson more, and do more fun things together,” Lucy said.
