Service

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these
who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Matthew 25.40

The Christian call to service is intimately related to Jesus’ call to love.  Throughout the gospels, we are called to serve others, yet the reason for which is most poignantly noted in the scripture passage above.  When we serve one another, especially the poor and the forgotten, we are serving God in those people.  Saint Mary’s Lasallian tradition is itself an expression of this call to love, for education is a sharing of God’s Truth with the world .

At Saint Mary’s College High School, our service program has many different elements ranging from outreach activities such as assisting at local races or marathons, the Walk for Life, and service at the Alameda County Food Bank.  We engage in different drives over the course of the year to collect necessary items for different community constituencies, including the following and others:

Toiletries Drive
Sock and Coat Drive
Food Drive
“Making the Cut” – Hair donation

Within Campus Ministry, SALT (Social Action Lasallian Team) is a group of students who come together weekly both to enact and design service opportunities for the entire Saint Mary’s community.  Meetings are generally held on “SALTy Wednesdays” during lunch, and all students are welcome to attend and offer ideas for service opportunities.  SALT students have raised funds to support organizations such as our “Twin” Lasallian School, Saint Mary’s in Nyeri, Kenya, and also supported our Immersion Programs .

Because engendering an attitude of service is foundational to Saint Mary’s College High School, opportunities for engagement in service are also found in many programs outside of the Campus Ministry program.  Year-to-year, these include the following opportunities and even more:

Lasallian Days
Enrichment Week
Student Fundraiser for Tuition Assistance
Athletic Team Service Activities
“PALS” – Peer Assisted Learning Support Tutorial Program
Performing Arts – “Drama on the Road”
Senior Project
Blood Drive
Peace & Justice Days
California Scholarship Federation Activities
National Honor Society Activities
Various Curricular Activities

Our continued hope at Saint Mary’s is that we develop service-oriented leaders who recognize that they are responsible for their brothers and sisters who surround them.  In this way, each and every one of our service opportunities are not the goal, but instead act as a means to developing a life of service, inspired by the gospel’s call to love one’s neighbor .