On a beautiful day in March 2024, Community Day brought all three divisions of Charlotte Latin School together. Students left their classrooms for a full day of activities that encompassed scholarship, wellness, beautification of the Latin campus, and service to the larger Charlotte community. What made it special was that students did the activities in groups that united the divisions: a 12th grader, for example, would team up with an eighth grader and a fifth grader, running around campus together. 

Head of School Chuck Baldecchi recalled, “You saw a lot of wonderful things in those groups. A senior would be remembering what it was like to be a fifth grader. And you had a fifth grader that was basically in awe that a senior was giving her time.”

This year, Community Day returns with an even-more ambitious slate of programming, including an environmentally themed scavenger hunt and a World Fair. “Students aren’t going to want to miss this day,” Baldecchi says. “I believe they’ll look back at it as a pivotal moment in their time at Latin.”

The day connects the past, present, and future of Charlotte Latin, and so it is now called Sunny’s Day, named after Sara “Sunny” Harris Hutchinson ’93. As a student at Latin, she was well-known for her spirit of inclusion and friendship: she made a habit of connecting with others and then finding ways to illuminate their spirits and lift them up. Her memory serves as an inspiration for today’s students to embrace those values and a beacon of Latin’s best values, guiding the school as it builds community for the 21st century.

Sunny’s Day, now an annual event, is just one element of Sunny’s Legacy. Her memory inspires Sunny’s Scholarship, a life-changing scholarship that covers all elements of a Latin education from Grade 6 through graduation. Designed to make Sunny’s ideals concrete by bringing exceptional people into the Latin community and then letting them thrive, it currently supports one student in each year of Grades 6 through 10. 

In addition, Sunny’s Honor is voted on by the senior class and presented at Commencement to the graduating senior who best exemplifies her selflessness, empathy, and loyalty — the values cultivated on Sunny’s Day. (Past recipients include Mary Schleusner ’22, Biz Neely ’23, Tommy Beason ’24, and Maggie Hyder ’25.)

On Sunny’s Day, however, her memory shines on every member of the Latin community. As students hustle around the campus, working as teams in Patten Stadium and decorating welcome mats for homes built by Habitat for Humanity, they will also be learning one of the most important lessons of their years here: the joy that comes from connecting with other people and making their lives better.