Last weekend, the 6th Annual Serve It Up Volleyball Tournament brought together Lasallian schools across the Bay Area including Justin Siena, Saint Mary’s Berkeley and Sacred Heart Cathedral, to serve and play together. Christian Brothers Sacramento hosted the tournament this year, and the players engaged in service projects that included backpack and supply distribution to individuals living in a tent community, a neighborhood and park clean up, volleyball clinics for grade schoolers, and a habitat clean up at the Sacramento Zoo that will help make way for the okapi moving in soon. Check out this fun student-produced video highlighting the tournament.
Serve It Up has proven to leave a lasting impression upon its participants, as SHC alumnus Aaron Adams ’15 came to find. In his reflection, he describes how he met his current housemates, now all in their senior year at Saint Mary’s College of California.
by Aaron Adams ’15
Back in 2013, the Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory Girls Volleyball Program hosted the inaugural Serve it Up tournament. Saint Mary’s College High School, Christian Brothers High School, and La Salle Catholic College Preparatory all came to perform service work in the San Francisco community and to play the sport they all loved. At the time, I was in my first of two years as the student manager for the Girls Varsity Volleyball team. The most distinct memory from that weekend is the shirt that everyone received. A nice, long-sleeve, dri-fit shirt with hot pink writing.
Two years later, I began attending Saint Mary’s College of California where I continued to participate in the volleyball program and volleyball community on campus. I ran into two girls at an open gym, one wearing the same Serve it Up shirt that I had. I approached her, and we got to talking. It turned out that we initially met at the Serve It Up tournament back in 2013.
Alexandra O’Sullivan attended and played at Saint Mary’s College High School in Albany, and Kimberly Le played for La Salle College Preparatory in Oregon. This sparked a great friendship that has led to us becoming housemates in this final year of college. Alex and Kimberly are two of my best friends at school, and it was amazing how I met them before, not knowing I would run into them again another day.
Today, Alex plays for the Division 1 Saint Mary’s College Gaels Women’s Volleyball team, and I serve as the student manager. I never thought that our Lasallian connection a couple years before could reconnect us later on and spark a great and strong friendship.
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