FA Graduation 2026: ‘Homesick for a Place You Haven’t Even Left Yet’

Friends Academy graduated 81 seniors Saturday on a sun-drenched, cool-breeze morning and celebrated their ultimate legacy: year over year, they were a deeply connected group that elevated the school’s entire community with their courage, confidence, laughter, joy, and endless kindness.

There was no threat of rain — only blue skies as far as the eye could see — but it was fitting that the Class of 2026 received their diplomas underneath a large tent on the school’s historic Quad.

Just a few weeks ago, a large contingent of seniors played a class prank that proved to be all class and zero prank.

They camped out on the Quad, setting up several tents and even a kiddie-sized waterslide as a festive accoutrement. Led on guitar by a classmate who’s headed to the Berklee College of Music, they sang campfire songs into the wee hours at the top of their lungs. Near the end, everyone crammed into the largest tent to share literal warmth and linger in the kind of warm glow they had so often created for everyone on campus.

Senior Bryan Bin (pictured below) gave the closing graduation speech and said of that night, “There was nowhere else in the world I would rather be.”

He looked out at his classmates and added, “It is a deeply weird feeling — to be homesick for a place you have not even left yet. To miss people who are sitting three feet away from you. So the lesson I'm taking is to just: stay. For as long as you possibly can, in whatever is left of this: just stay. As Andy Bernard said in The Office, ‘I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.’ Moments are meant to be fleeting, so look around and take it in.”

Moments might be fleeting, but epiphanies can take longer to materialize.

Senior Sofia Schwarz (pictured below) delivered the opening graduation speech and said of their Quad campout, “We slowly realized the prank was on us, as we rolled out the next morning sleepless and freezing and somehow with smiles on all our faces.”


Part of the Friends Academy experience is that all K-12 students regularly convene in The Meeting House for deep personal reflection and strengthening community bonds.

That the 2026 senior “prank” created this Meeting House dynamic on the Quad in such a simple, almost primal way — to be human is to feel belonging in the chorus of campfire songs — speaks volumes about their place in school history as Friends approaches its 150th anniversary.

Mrs. Nailah Moonsammy, the school’s DEI director and the faculty speaker at this year’s commencement, said, “Anthropologists remind us that real human strength is collective, not individual. As ‘obligately gregarious’ beings, our survival has always relied on our capacity to cooperate and protect our social bonds. We need community, tribe, family, and friends; we need one another, simply and plainly. In over 20 years of teaching, I have never seen a cohort champion that evolutionary truth the way these seniors have.”

Clockwise from bottom right: Head of School Mr. Paul Stellato; Henry Brett-Chin, who revealed the senior’s gift to the school; Mrs. Nailah Moonsammy, the faculty speaker at commencement and the school’s DEI director.

Translated for Gen Z, Mrs. Moonsammy commended the seniors for always bringing the right “vibes.”

“There is always a bit of anxiety the morning of a senior prank,” she said. “But this year, that anxiety was quelled by the Quad’s transformation into a temporary campground. Faculty, staff, maintenance, and students walked into a space that generated laughter and joy. In anthropology, we talk about the power of collective energy — the invisible social glue or magic that allows a community to thrive. This class understands that intuitively. You don’t just occupy a space; you curate the atmosphere. Through your humor, mischief, playfulness, and care for one another, you have embraced the art of collective joy.”

The only thing the seniors didn’t intuitively understand was the need for a bigger tent.

Yet when such a tent was erected for graduation, they weren’t merely sitting beneath it. In a way, they were holding it up for all those who will come after them.

Leading his final graduation ceremony before retiring at the end of the month, Head of School Mr. Paul Stellato said, “Having watched you every morning during senior meeting; in community groups and plays, performances, and games; having watched you conceive of and execute a senior prank that elevated and inspired the entire school; having watched you weep at the Meeting for Reflection and cling to one another in moments of great joy and deep sorrow; having had a glimpse of your impact through the care you have given to our younger students; and, finally, seeing you today achingly beautiful, joyful, loving, and seemingly more youthful than you have ever been … and the timing of all of this could not be better, for I have the luxury now of casting off any constraints that may have bound me. Or, putting it another way, I can say what sits deep in my heart … I am pleased to name you the greatest class in the history of Friends Academy!”

Which begs the question: What is greatness?

“Greatness is never a solo endeavor,” Mrs. Moonsammy said. “Although as a society we frequently credit individuals for major achievements, the reality is that the true architect of progress is always the community. Greatness does not require perfection. It requires imagination, community, intellect, and hope — all things you possess in abundance.”

On a picturesque day when the senior class could have sat on the grass and sung campfire songs seemingly forever, they threw their graduation caps in the air, marched out of the tent, and scattered across the Quad in myriad directions — the first steps toward new beginnings and journeys.

In the lingering moments as graduates took photos and hugged one another before the Quad emptied out, both Bryan’s call to “stay” and Sofia’s advice for the future felt prescient beyond their years. “When the world moves too fast, and it will,” she said, “you already know what to do, because you have been doing it for four years. Find your people. Hold on to them.”

In the end, the Class of 2026 learned that the size of their tent on the Quad doesn’t matter because the idea of it will follow them forever.

“I am reminded,” Mrs. Moonsammy said, “of a powerful insight from the author and activist belle hooks, who wrote, ‘The love we make in community stays with us wherever we go.’ Your community lives within you. I truly believe that what you have accomplished here — this deep awareness of joy, stewardship, trust, and radical love, which I believe are the core ingredients to greatness — is a gift you will carry and use for the rest of your lives.”

Here is the Friends Academy graduating Class of 2026:

Akash Agarwal
Jonathan Daniel Almendares-Montes
Raghav Bansal
Daniella Berritto
Bryan S. Bin
William Tate Bohner
Tyler James Bragoli
Mackenzie Leah Breg
Henry Brett-Chin
Emma Reese Brock
James Patrick Byrnes IV
Shuoming Chang
Paige Maria Cicciari
Alexa Paige Cohen
Jemima Jane Constantino
Juliette Rose D'Addario
James Kelvin Damassia
Alvin E. Deng
Sophia Elizabeth Diaz
Aiden Dufford
Jordan Tyler Eisbruck
Edward Beiles Englander
Henry Bryan Esquenet
Ava Taylor Estrella
Cynthia Rashel Eustache
Abigail Maryann Hope Frazer
Jenna Allison Gambella
Natalia Nalini Gambino
Amanda Gimbel
Katherine Goldstein
Chelsea Anne Gordon
Zack Ethan Grossman
Andie Rose Herman
Ava Loren Jaklitsch
Pia Jauhar
Nicholai Jordan
Ethan Myles Kalimian
Komalpreet Kaur
Jacob Kim
Jack Hudson Kozinn
Shane Benjamin Kramer
Marley Sage Kraska
Marina Sofia Krichmar
Nicole M. Kuchta
Aaron Sam Labelson
Devin Jacob Lane
Honoria Eleanor Adele Lawton Flatters
Dylan Xavier Leon
Zijia Li
Mason A. Linken
Aidan Antonio Lloves
Marcella Dani Mallin
Mircea Manu
Mina Alia Marchetti
Crystal Evelyn Mendoza
Kody Alan Mitchell
Cooper Forde Mott
Naina Narula
Charles Vincent Nevin
James Rexford Otto
Yushi Peng
Angelina Josephine Posada
Taylor Rose Price
Arielle Savannah Roberts
Blaise Clermont Saad
Sofia Elise Schwarz
Jordan Bella Shallat
Vir Vinnay Singh
Collin Samuel Trust
Chris Coby Tsiolis Jr.
Winston Leith Vance
Meher Singh Walia
Julang Wang
Jared Michael Williams
Lia Jordan Winters
Dylan Rachel Wolf
Charlotte Heather Yanke
Jaime Yeung
Charli Soleil Zahtila
Feng Xin Zhang
Daren Zhong

Photos by Island Photography