On Tuesday October 11, over 100 third graders greeted the sophomore class with cheers and smiles when they arrived at the lower school campus to meet their Eagle Buddies for the first time.

Last year, the Eagle Buddies program was founded by Upper School history teacher Carol Zink, who had three main goals when initiating this program in order to develop relationships between grade school students and high schoolers.

“[The purpose of this program is to] insert a connectivity between campuses since all of them are so spread out; to give the sophomores an opportunity to be the role of a mentor to another child, which will help the sophomores become more personally responsible; and to have some fun,” Zink said.

Zink schedules not only for the sophomores to interact with third graders, but also for the juniors to reconnect with their fourth grade buddies and for the seniors to meet their assigned fifth graders.

“The younger kids benefit from having an older mentor. The sophomores benefit because they get to be kids again,” said Abel Olivas, Upper School Foreign Language Department Chair. “Some of them were actually going back to their old campus.”

The partial lockdown about a week earlier prevented the students from meeting each other then, and left the sophomores and the third graders anxious to see each other.

“I feel sad because of what happened last week because of the shooting, and I feel like we let down the third graders,” Pooja Chirala (10) said.

However, the meet-up was quickly rescheduled for the week after the “indoor recess.” Four buses shuttled the sophomore over to the Bucknall campus before long lunch.

The day began with groups of Eagle Buddies eating lunch together and was followed by a long recess. From playing “hot lava” on the playground to making arts and crafts, everyone bonded with their respective Eagle Buddies.

“I get to play with them and they are really cool and fun,” Ruya Ozveren (3) said.

With the chance to be a young child again for a few hours, sophomores enjoyed themselves with activities ranging from eating Scooby Doo gummy bears to playing tag.

“My favorite part was running around on the grass and when we gave piggyback races,” Mary Liu (10) said.”
When it was time for the sophomores to return to the Upper School, they left their buddies with hugs and promises to meet each other at the homecoming game this November.

According to Zink, the next scheduled Eagle Buddies encounter for the Class of 2014 is in January where the sophomores will be wearing their pajamas to the lower school for another day of fun.