March’s Community Member of the Month is Sydney Bueno Linn for her work with the St. Mark Community Education Program and student government.
One leg folded over another, senior Sydney Bueno Linn settles into a desk inside the empty Fiction and Film room. She sips from a small green matcha—her signature drink at Starbucks. “I like everything a little sweet,” she tells me with a chuckle.
Indeed, “a little sweet” is fairly apt in describing Bueno Linn herself. Her sweater, white with black stripes every inch or so down to the bottom, is hardly unassuming. Her voice, steady and quiet, grows quicker and louder as our nearly-15-minute conversation progresses, her passion and joy palpable.
It’s a characterization with which senior Sydney Freese agrees. Though they had known of each other since freshman year, Freese and Bueno Linn did not become good friends until their junior year, when they shared a Social Justice Leadership class during G-block.
“She’s an absolute ball of sunshine, just such a genuinely kind person who you’re so excited to see,” Freese said. “And funny and witty and caring and warm—the kind of presence you want to be around, who makes everyone in the room feel better.”
Sophomore Carinn Bueno Linn knows her sister better than, perhaps, anyone. Her sister’s generosity and selflessness, she said, are traits that one often doesn’t find in someone so young.
But for all of Sydney Bueno Linn’s bubbliness, kindness and care, it is her passion for social justice, an incessant hunger to help others, that defines her most.
Aspiring to work in government or law, she has served as a representative on Legislature and Student Council since her junior year, a position she sought after learning about the Tackling Injustice Bill, which established clearer punishments for students using hate speech in the wake of several such incidents, in 2023.
“It seemed like a great opportunity to be involved in something that makes such a difference in our school,” Sydney Bueno Linn said. “Having the chance to talk to faculty, understand their perspectives on issues, and pass a few bills that I support was so exciting.”
Since then, she has been instrumental in revamping Student Council’s club funding process, drafting a bill clarifying deadlines for asynchronous work and pushing for increased accessibility for students with disabilities.
“She’s a very informed person. She knows what she thinks is right and when something unjust happens, it really affects her and leads her to take action,” Carinn Bueno Linn said. “She’s definitely a changemaker.”
Sydney Bueno Linn, for her part, stays humble, rejecting the label of “changemaker” when I propose it. “Changemaker?” Her laugh lets me know that she finds this more amusing than flattering. “I don’t know if there are any concrete things that I’ve really changed. I have big plans!”
One of those “big plans,” it seems, is helping others learn English. A required component of Social Justice Leadership is a weeks-long internship with a local social justice organization; she chose to work with the St. Mark Community Education Program, a Dorchester-based nonprofit that provides English classes to adult immigrants preparing for the U.S. citizenship test.
Starting out as a volunteer and later promoted to an assistant teacher, she teaches Level 1 English twice a week. For Addy Anyaosah ‘24, who teaches alongside her and also got her start in the program through Social Justice Leadership, that is one of the most remarkable aspects of Sydney Bueno Linn’s service.
“It takes about 40 minutes to get there by train, and she does that every week, no matter the weather,” Anyaosah said.
Her teaching style is magnetic and thorough, inviting and steadfast. “She will take as much time as it takes to help a student understand, and she uses this incredible positivity and approachability,” Anyaosah said. “The students saw her as a third teacher, that’s how involved she was.”
Though she has “never thought of [herself] as a ‘helper’”—humble once more—Sydney Bueno Linn said that ultimately, it is her love of people that drives her service.
“I love hearing people’s stories, and I feel like I get so much from human connection,” she said. “I really want to make everyone around me feel happy and fulfilled, so if that means teaching someone English or saying ‘hi’ in the hallway, I get so much joy from that and I hope other people do, too.”
