April 2025 - Chris Garavaglia, VP for Finance

Dear De La Salle Community,

I hope you enjoyed a wonderful and joyful Spring Break! It feels like yesterday when we were welcoming our class of 2028 to the DLS community, and now we will be celebrating the graduation of our class of 2025 before we know it! Just around the corner, we will be commemorating our Holy Week Liturgy, enjoying Company’s performances of the musical Hadestown, celebrating our Founder’s Liturgy, Teacher Appreciation Week, Student Recognition Assembly, and a multitude of athletic and co-curricular activities. Springtime at DLS is a whirlwind of activities, hard work, celebrations, and Brotherhood. The energy and joy are contagious, and each day reminds me of how blessed I am to call De La Salle my home.

While my work is often internally focused, as my primary responsibility is to ensure the financial stability and viability of De La Salle High School by safeguarding our resources so we can fulfill our mission, my eyes are always looking outward and to the future. Our financial condition is strong, our upcoming 2025-26 budget is balanced, and we continue to meet the Christian Brothers’ mandate to be as accessible as possible. With an operating budget of $30M, we work diligently to provide approximately $4.7M in financial aid to over one-third of our student body while maintaining our commitment to our most important resource: our incredible faculty, staff, and coaches. They show daily dedication to forming Men of Faith, Integrity, and Scholarship. I am in awe and so humbled by the commitment, dedication, and care these men and women invest in our students to ensure they receive the instructional programming, co-curricular opportunities, and individualized care and support they need to succeed. What a testament to the words of our Mission Statement, “where students are loved, instructed, and guided”.

Our endowment continues to increase, and it remains a focus to grow over time given its critical support of our mission. Annual Giving has almost tripled in four years thanks to the dedication of our Advancement Office. Your support makes our bright present possible and enables an even stronger future.

De La Salle is secure and well-positioned for the future. As we continue to advance the Strategic Plan and carry out the Campus Master Plan, I only see hope, and I say that as I “internally focus” on the financial security of our future.  As always, there is hard work ahead, but there is also love, dedication, and joyful commitment from this incredible community we are all a part of.

Live Jesus in our Hearts. Forever,

Chris Garavaglia
Vice President for Finance