Service at De La Salle
When our school first opened on September 7, 1965, there were early signs that community service would play a large role in the lives of our students. Father LaSalle Hallissey, himself a member of De La Salle’s first graduating class in 1969, distinctly remembers how he and other students helped the Mt. Diablo School District with their sixth-grade outdoor education camps in Pescadero, California.
Indeed, the phrase “Enter to Learn, Leave to Serve” has become an essential charism of Lasallian schools everywhere, even though the phrase itself was only adopted in 1998 after it was discovered hanging over the entrance of a remote Lasallian School in Kushpur, Pakistan.
Our school is no different. “Enter to Learn, Leave to Serve” has been embraced as a core value here at De La Salle and is embodied every year through the many charitable acts of our students. We actively seek to challenge our students to serve others and deepen their sense of responsibility for humanity’s future.
At their core, our service learning projects are designed to help students develop a sense of social and personal responsibility. To increase their understanding of the conditions that warrant service and to challenge them to recognize their potential as agents of social change. It is a learning process that happens through the example of others and the understanding that giving comes in many different ways, shapes, and forms.
On average, our students dedicate over 50,000 hours to service and raise close to $30,000 each year for local, national, and international causes. In addition to school-wide annual fundraisers, entire classes and athletics teams donate their time and energy to raise awareness and meet the needs of the less fortunate.
The hope is that, by the time of their graduation, each of our students has been inspired to embrace a lifelong commitment to service and that they are willing to put their time, money, and God-given talents toward helping others.
2025-26 Highlights
- Members of our De La Salle community donated $2,300 and 2,100 boxes of cereal to Monument Crisis Center, all of that cereal filled over eight octagon pallets.
- Our annual Toy Drive was a massive success, with over 700 toys and over $2,300 being delivered to three local groups: Bay Area Crisis Nursery, Running With Love, and Oakland Catholic Worker.
- Our annual suicide prevention event, Laps for Life, saw a major change in the past few years. Instead of taking place on the first Saturday in February, we shifted the program to a school day. We raised over $1,000 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
- Our Spartan Charity Challenge far surpassed its goal! We raised over $7,940,73 for the Brotherhood Fund, Monument Crisis Center, and the 1 La Salle Fund
- Our Annual Jim Olwell Memorial Duck Race was a complete success, as hundreds of ducks floated down the pool. All $1,200 went to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
