Student Giving Day for Friends Together
Posted on July 1, 2025
This year’s Student Giving Day has been a highlight of the Friends Together Annual Giving Program. Students from Kindergarten to Year 12 reflected on giving, service and what can be achieved through collective action. They raised money for The Friends’ Fellowship through gold coin donations, a bake sale, hot chocolate stalls and a second hand uniform stall. Together our students raised $3,595 to enable a young person to access a Friends’ education through The Friends’ Fellowship bursary.
For more information or to support the Friends Together program, please CLICK HERE
Louis Langoulant (2022)
The Friends’ Fellowship past recipient
A Zoom call with Year 5 students and past student Louis Langoulant (2022) (pictured above) completed the Student Giving Day. Louis received The Friends’ Fellowship in 2021-2022 and this was a wonderful chance for our students to meet a needs-based scholarship recipient first hand.
Louis spoke about coming to Friends’ and being struck by how much Friends’ students were ‘invested in their learning’, so he thought he better do that too! The students asked many, many questions… including ‘how did you get the Fellowship’, ‘what was it like when you started’, ‘did other people know you had the Fellowship’ (the answer is no, it’s confidential!), ‘what was your favourite sport’, ‘who was your favourite teacher’ and more.
We are pleased to report that Louis is going very well since graduating from Friends’ and is currently studying Arts/Law in Sydney after a huge adventure volunteering in a remote Ecuadorian village accessible only by canoe.
Interview with Louis Langoulant (2022)
The Friends’ Fellowship recipient
What did you think when you first heard you had received The Friends’ Fellowship?
I had honestly never considered the possibility of attending a private school. Growing up regionally, it wasn’t really on my radar. My brother and I definitely didn’t expect to receive the Fellowship, however once we did, I saw it as a huge opportunity to learn from some of the best teachers, in one of the healthiest academic environments in the state. But above that, I remember admiring the ethos of the Friends’ school, the emphasis on community, and looking forward to spending time in a caring culture of excellence. But I was also really nervous, because I’d never lived in the city, and the notion of boarding at a private school was very foreign to me.
What was your impression of Friends’?
In the IB diploma, the sense of community was incredibly strong, as was the sense of shared motivation. However this also expanded to the school as a whole. Due to its relatively small cohort sizes, I think that friend groups generally intermingled and almost everyone knew each other, even if only as a passing acquaintance. This can’t be said about other larger schools, and I think contributed a lot to the learning community. It’s very motivating to know that your friends are working alongside you, and I think it helps students avoid the sense of isolation that so often plagues ones’ college years.
Learning at Friends’ gave me so much, but if I was going to highlight one aspect, it would be the global-mindedness. This was woven into the culture of Friends’, and it inspired me to think about the application of my studies to the real world, as well as to understand slightly better my own place amongst it all. I think, growing up in Tassie, this is super important, because it’s easy to become internalised and to think that Tassie is all there is. But, as young people who will go on to shape the future, it’s vital to understand that there are a lot of opportunities out there beyond Tassie, and to be able to take those opportunities with confidence if the chance arises. If you want to, of course (because Tassie is also cool).
What lasting impact has Friends’ had on your life?
After Friends’, I travelled to South America for half a year to consolidate my Spanish skills. I can safely say that this would have been extremely unlikely if I hadn’t attended TFS, and learnt a language. This was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and a lot of the things I learnt at Friends’ held me in great stead over there. Obviously, the language was super helpful, but also the ability to understand the importance of experiencing things on the ground – I spent a month volunteering with an Indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon. One of the things that gave me the confidence to get there (which was not an easy task – it was only accessible by boat, and was very close to the dangerous border with Colombia), and work there, so far outside my cultural context, was my success at Friends’, and how I had done something seemingly insurmountable before – attending and doing well in the IB diploma as a kid from the sticks.
Now I’m studying arts and law in Sydney. But the language skills, my value of community and the idea of focussing on something I believe in and achieving it, have not left me, and probably never will.
