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December 19, 2025|Culture, Education

Abby Kelley Foster students pair up across grade levels through a buddies program that builds community, confidence, and connection from kindergarten to graduation

By Bill Doyle

WORCESTER—At the Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School on Friday afternoon, 80 seniors bonded with 120 kindergartners as part of the Kindergarten-Senior Buddies Program.

The bonding was fitting because the school is located on New Bond Street.

Each senior was assigned one or two “Buddies” from the kindergarten class. The seniors had already written letters to the kindergartners, but Friday was the first of their three meetings this school year. The students colored and cut out paper snowglobes and other drawings together. 

The program develops a sense of school community with the seniors serving as role models and provides a memorable experience for the kindergartners, helping them feel a sense of belonging.

Senior Tristan Robinson, 17, of Worcester helped kindergartners Levy Fernandez, 5, of Worcester, and Daxton Canton, 5, of Worcester color and cut out their snowglobes. Asked if he enjoyed coloring with a role model, Levy replied, “What is a role model?”

By the end of the program, Levy should know that Tristan and the other seniors are role models to remember.

“I’m just enjoying the whole atmosphere,” Tristan said. “I see me being a dad in the future and just being able to experience this. I like this. I enjoy this. I hope this can carry on to when I leave high school, the other juniors or sophomores can also be able to do this. I appreciate it.”

Levy said he was having fun and he said the most fun was, “That we don’t have to do any letters.”

Laura Russell teaches seniors U.S. government and history and she runs the Kindergarten-Senior Buddies Program. She said the program reminds the seniors how little the kindergartners are.

“They love the fact that just them being big and from the high school make them like a little hero,” Russell said, “and the kids are excited to have that connection with someone older and someone from Abby Kelley because it’s kind of like their future.”

Seniors sat with the kindergartners in several classrooms, including with the 19 in the class of teacher Lucy Marcil.

“I think this is an excellent program,” Marcil said, “because most of the kids need to see positive role models who come through our school. We don’t see each other because we’re split into three buildings. So they get to see that these students come here and they’re polite, they’re kind, they’re all the things we want an Abby Kelley student to be.”

Senior John Paul Waweru, 17, of Worcester worked with Hayden Guitar, 6, of Worcester. Hayden said he enjoyed coloring a gingerbread man that John helped him turn into a paper snowglobe.

“I use big scissors,” Hayden said with pride.

Asked what he liked the most about John, Hayden replied, “His cutting skills.”

“It’s really good to interact with them, connect with them,” John said of the kindergartners, “get to set an example for them, show them the future generation that they’re going to become. And we get to show them that there’s much more for them in the future.”

This is the third year of the Buddies program at Abby Kelley Foster, but John wishes the school had it when he was a kindergartner there.

“I would have gotten to know a lot of new things,” he said.

Heidi Paluk, Abby Kelley Foster executive director, said the school is the only one in Worcester with students in grades K-12. Abby Kelley Foster has 1,426 students in all. Paluk is a big fan of the Buddies Program.

“To me, it’s one of the highlights of my year,” Paluk said.

Paluk believes the seniors get as much out of the program and the kindergartners do.

“I think the seniors have one of the best times,” Paluk said, “because they get to realize that there’s a privilege in being a senior. You get to model all of the character virtues that we’ve been talking about for 13 years with them – how to be a good citizen, friendship, truth. All of the things we talk about, they know that they are the model today. They get looked up to. So they know their behavior is 100 percent being watched and I think that gives them a sense of adulthood, which is where they’re headed anyway.”

Paluk said the program allows the kindergartners to see themselves in 13 years. She pointed out that not all students everywhere make it through high school, but 97 percent of Abby Kelley Foster students do.

“So this (Buddies Program) sets them up for that journey as they travel down New Bond Street and get to their 12th grade,” she said.

The seniors took the short walk down the street from the high school building to the elementary school building to take part in the program on Friday.

The kindergartners were scheduled to walk to the high school in the morning to meet with their Big Buddies and watch a movie in the auditorium with them, but rain forced the youngsters to remain in their classrooms. So the seniors watched it by themselves and then walked to the elementary school for the second part of the program.

The seniors and kindergartners get together again to do a craft in the early spring and to make picture frames just before graduation. Teachers take photos of the seniors and kindergartners to display in the frames. Finally, the seniors will stroll through the middle school and elementary school buildings in their caps and gowns the day before graduation.

“It’s going to be a mix of emotions,” John said. “I’m going to be emotional walking down and getting to see where I grew up as a child from kindergarten to senior year.”

Paluk said the kindergartners will be excited to see their Big Buddies that day.

“There’s going to be hugs and cheers,” she said. “It helps to perpetuate that sense of community and family that we have here at Abby Kelley.”

Bill Doyle has been a professional journalist for 47 years, most of them as a sports writer for the Telegram & Gazette. He covered the Boston Celtics for 25 years and has written extensively about golf, boxing and local high school and college sports. He also worked for the campus newspaper when he attended UMass-Amherst. He can be reached at [email protected]