On Founder’s Day, students celebrate and sing—and hear alumni talk about how to let their lives speak.

Jeremy Oldfield ’01 had reasonable expectations for life after Sidwell Friends. He wanted to be a novelist. Or a radio producer. Or a historian. Or the president of the United States, or a hobo jumping on train cars and seeing the real America, or an Olympic distance runner, or a teenage heartthrob rockstar. Despite these prospects and much to his surprise, Oldfield had a hard time in college. When he arrived at Williams as an undergrad, it seemed as though all his peers wanted to become “consultants.” It was harder to find the service values he had taken for granted at Sidwell.

And it was one of his best friends from Sidwell who helped him rediscover his way—when the pair moved to northern California after college to work on a farm. “Students can feel hobbled by pressure to create a perfect record,” he told Upper Schoolers during his keynote address for Let Your Life Speak morning on Founder’s Day. “Farming is a low-pressure way to get it right.” Getting it right for Oldfield didn’t mean a steady job, but it did mean a return to his curiosity and sense of wonder. He no longer had eyes on the Oval Office, but he did have a feel for life. Over a decade, he worked dozens of jobs around the country—from nailing shingles in Maine to chopping cabbage in Oakland. But it was never long before he was back on a farm.

Today, he is the manager of field academics at the Yale Farm at Yale University. He calls it a “problem-rich environment for teachable moments.” Oldfield oversees open workdays, when volunteers come to farm; he connects with local mutual aid organizations to donate food; he teaches students at every level about food sovereignty, Indigenous practices, the resiliency of rye, and how to distill the color indigo from leaves; he grows hops vines for Yale Ale; and he organizes weekly student food talks that happen while the attendees eat 50 to 70 pizzas fresh from the farm’s wood-fired oven. It’s like dozens of jobs in one, which for this wanderlust feels right.

“The world is a classroom,” Oldfield said. “Go deep into the labyrinth, into the archives, find primary sources. People are one type of primary source. I encourage you to seek them out. Put your body into spaces with others.” He also told them to cherish the relationships they have made during their time at Sidwell Friends. “The world isn’t set up for you to know people the way you know each other now,” he said. But if they keep track of one another, he said, they could “enable each other’s curiosity.”

This year, more than 30 alumni speakers from across the country spoke with Upper School students about their careers and lives since graduating from Sidwell Friends. Speakers included artist Lyn Horton ’68, political communications advisor David Hauge ’16, Department of Justice attorney Daniel Winik ’03, USAID’s Katie Dock ’15, professor of religion and Islamic mysticism Cyril “CJ” Uy ’08, financial advisor Mara Bralove ’89, therapist Charlotte Masters ’17, and Unitarian Universalist Reverend Sadie Lansdale ’08, among many others.

The Middle Schoolers did not experience the full panoply of speakers, but they were treated to a keynote address by Albert Gore III ’01. The executive director of Zero Emission Transportation Association, or “ZETA,” Gore shared his excitement about the growth in electric-vehicle adoption and was delighted to see how many Middle Schoolers raised their hands when asked whose family had one at home. He also spoke movingly about his lengthy recovery after being struck by a car when he was 6 years old and, much later, his experience as an incoming Sidwell Friends student whose father just happened to be vice president of the United States. And this year for the first time, even the Lower Schoolers had a keynote speaker. The Planetary Health Alliance’s Yasmina Ahdab ’15 spoke about conservation and immediately won the students over with her wildlife photography.

After an inspiring morning, the Lower Schoolers bused over to the DC campus, met up with their Middle School “buddies” for the day, and all three divisions of Sidwell Friends came together in community and song. Head of School Bryan Garman did not dress as Thomas Sidwell this year, though he did dress as another American pioneer: Woody Guthrie. After some impressive feats of harmonica, Garman led the entire student body, alumni, faculty, and staff in a full-throated round of “This Land Is Your Land.” Outside the Kogod Arts Center under a gorgeous sunny and temperate day, it struck just the right note.

And then it was off to the picnic for burgers and lemonade, games and service projects, face-painting and a bouncy house. Across generations, people were putting their bodies into spaces with others as Oldfield had suggested. “Letting your life speak involves passion,” he had told the Upper Schoolers. “And passion helps you keep falling in love with the world again and again.”