Home

The Front Lawn is many things for the St. Andrew’s community—playground, classroom, event venue, and more. On Sept. 29, it took a new shape: that of a barber shop. 

Organized by Austin Macalintal ’26 as the culminating event of a fundraising and awareness campaign for pediatric cancer, Saints gathered to watch 13 of their own, including faculty and students of all forms, shave their heads in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

“I just wanted to help raise money to give back, but it’s also [about] the awareness aspect—just understanding the things some kids go through and being able to acknowledge that fact and then empathize,” Macalintal says. “It was nice because a lot of the kids don’t really have a choice, and [by shaving your head,] you’re kind of going through the same thing [and] choosing to shave your head in support [of] them.” 

Macalintal introduced this initiative to the school community during the first School Meeting of the year on Sept. 5. He shared his personal journey going through a diagnosis with osteosarcoma. 

“I was somewhat nervous [about] being very open to the whole community about this,” he says. “Everyone was really supportive. I know a lot of people thought it was nice to be informed, or just… to know the story behind it and understand it rather than being in ignorance and not knowing what truly happened.” 

Diagnosed before the start of fourth grade, Macalintal spent the year going through treatment and surgery, with his treatment ending in April of that year. 

“A big thing when going through it is just all the people there to support you,” he says. “You don’t really remember how tired you were … [but] you really remember the people that were there for you and [how] they gave time to help you feel better and make the most of your time in the hospital or your time during treatment.” 

Macalintal’s people: his family. He remembers the unending time and support they gave him, and how his family took care of each other through this difficult time. 

His family also connected during this time to the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund, a foundation which helps families tackling childhood cancer through financial, emotional, and practical support. Macalintal particularly remembers the programs put on by the organization which lightened his mental load in and out of hospital. 

Macalintal and his family have kept the organization and its mission close to their hearts in the years since, and his older siblings, Zach ’24, Madison ’22 and Katie ’20, first fundraised for it at St. Andrew’s before Macalintal began his own boarding experience. Now a V former, Macalintal spread awareness about and encouraged donations to the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund within the SAS community with his announcement at School Meeting and follow-up emails to the student and faculty body, a dress-down day in which students wore yellow in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month—with the $2 cost of dressing down benefiting the foundation—and the head-shaving event on the Front Lawn. 

Dean of Student Affairs and Macalintal’s advisor Gregory Guldin says Macalintal’s initiative, and the subsequent community response, has been “St. Andrew’s at its best.” He was eager to show Macalintal his support by buzzing his hair, and hoped to get other Saints on board by doing so. 

Throughout the entire month, Macalintal aimed to give back to the organization and community that gave so much to him and his family. But he says that “giving back” is about more than just raising funds, but about showing up for others with your time. 

“I didn’t really expect that many people to shave their heads,” says Macalintal. “It was nice to see all of the people that were willing to shave their heads, but also to see all the people that were willing to watch and support the whole thing [and] just be there. It showed me how much people care.”
 

When 2024-2025 co-presidents Leah Horgan ’25 and Nanda Pailla ’25 ran for their elected positions, 20 other students in their form were on the ballot. The competition among their form for this top leadership position at the school, however, wasn’t a cause of anxiety for the two, but a source of comfort in knowing just how many students in their form were similarly “bought into” the St. Andrew’s mission and culture. 

“They have your back,” Pailla says of the Class of 2025. “As soon as I got up to speak, everyone was clapping. It was special. You’re not sure if you want to [run], you’re kind of nervous to go up there and give a speech, but everyone there has your back and they’ve continued to have my back throughout the summer and coming into this year.”

The co-presidents will juggle many responsibilities this school year, including heading Form Council, giving daily announcements at lunch, running weekly School Meetings, working with faculty to serve as a voice for the students, and sitting on the Honor Committee and Discipline Committee. However, when their term ends, Horgan and Pailla will measure their accomplishments by not how many boxes they checked off on their to-do lists, but by the size of the positive impact they left on the people and places that make St. Andrew’s what it is. 

”It’s [about] just striving to make everyone here love this school as much as possible,” says Horgan. “And we obviously want to make [St. Andrew’s] a better place. We want to have people’s voices heard and opinions shared.”

For the seniors, this purpose is the reason they chose to run in the first place: they wanted to give back to the school by sharing their love for it. They both say they came into St. Andrew’s not knowing quite who they were, and that this community provided them the tools and the support system to mature and grow into the people they are today.

And who are they? They’re three-sport athletes, captains, leaders, and volunteers. Pailla, from Chantilly, Virginia, captains the boys soccer team and swim team, and rows in the spring. Horgan, a Wilmington, Delaware native, captains the cross-country team, runs indoor track, and plays soccer in the spring. Over the course of their time at St. Andrew’s, Pailla has given tours as a member of the Cardinal Society and served as a Chapel usher, and Horgan has volunteered for Adaptive Aquatics and served on the Student Vestry and Honor Committee, among other commitments.

Since being elected as co-presidents in the spring of 2024, the two shadowed 2023-2024 co-presidents Charlie Lunsford ’24 and Riya Soni ’24, and since, have homed in on the core values they want to preserve and build on this year, including the no-phone culture and adherence to dress code. 

“All of those different rules that we have in place, [we buy] into because we know that it’s not just dress code, but it’s the way that we all present ourselves to each other,” says Horgan. “So things like that [are about] understanding the bigger picture.”

They also hope to set the standard for the “little” ways that students show up for each other on campus that build school culture: cheering loud when someone goes up at an Open Mic Night or School Meeting and paying attention when others make announcements.

Additionally, Horgan and Pailla aim to strengthen the relationship between students and faculty and staff so that everyone is a part of the St. Andrew’s experience. Progress is already underway on this front: over the summer and through the beginning of the school year, they’ve worked closely with the new faculty as points of contact for the student body. They hope to become touchpoints for the staff of the school, as well. 

“Obviously, we see all of the faculty at lunches and in classes … but there’s so much that happens behind the scenes, and we’ve been lucky enough to be able to see a lot of that stuff,” says Horgan. “But I think sharing that with the rest of the students will be so important throughout the year [in terms of] just making those relationships [and] building those relationships. Knowing [staff] by name is really important.” 

The people—from Pailla’s younger brother, Tejas Pailla ’27, for whom he hopes to leave a positive impact on St. Andrew’s; to the underformers Horgan lives with in Pell, for whom she hopes to serve as a mentor; to the rest of the senior class, on whom they will both lean as they grow as leaders—are what makes serving in this role so special, they say. 

“The people that are here, they all chose to be here and they all want to be here,” says Pailla. “They want to adapt to what they’re not used to. They want to be out of their comfort zone and they want to just thrive as well as they can.”