By Sharon Abercrombie
Staff writer

“I love kids. I love to mentor them,” Lily Manderville warmly exclaimed. The St. Mary’s College sophomore’s dedication is a good example of what St. John Baptist de La Salle, the patron saint of educators, might have had in mind more than 300 years ago, when he noted, “to touch the hearts of your pupils and to inspire them with the Christian spirit is the greatest miracle you can perform and one which God expects of you.”

Members of the intentional communities gather for a group photo. SAINT MARY’S COLLEGE PHOTO

Manderville’s heart has been touched with dedication to faith and service, to say the least. Besides carrying a full schedule of classes, the art and business major’s life includes tutoring youngsters at St. Martin de Porres School in Oakland, squeezing in a Monday night class on Lasallian spirituality, and living in an intentional community on campus with 23 of her peers.

This innovative intentional community is the work of Christian Brother Michael Sanderl, dean for mission and ministry on the Moraga campus. Brother Sanderl, a Saint Mary’s graduate, began organizing the Lasallian Living Learning Community when he returned to the college in 2004, fresh from graduate school. He’d written his dissertation at USF on Catholic Identity and Lasallian Culture in Catholic Education, singling out his own religious community’s seven colleges and universities.

St. John Baptist de La Salle developed the idea of teaching children in classes rather than individually. He also pioneered the concept of education for ordinary people, according to a web site biography of his life.

During his lifetime, he was bent upon not only teaching young people, but also inspiring them to carry what they learned back into their communities in order to serve the poor, said Brother Sanderl. In contemporary times, Lasallian college graduates have the option to participate in a year-long volunteer service program, similar to the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Brother Sanderl, however, wondered what that model would look like if tweaked for a college campus.

In 2004 he and a campus ministry team invited a group of students to explore what they needed and wanted from campus life. Would they consider living in an intentional community with peers who held the same spiritual values as they? What would they as a group want to give to the larger community?

By 2005, Sanderl had a pilot program up and running with eight students signed on. The group gathered once a week to study Lasallian spirituality and to explore their faith. They began volunteering at St. Martin de Porres School. “We had everything in place except the living together,” said Brother Sanderl.

By the 2006 school year, the program had attracted 18 sophomores and juniors who were ready to form their intentional community in Beckett Hall, one of the college dormitories. They named it the Lasallian Living Learning Community.

As the year progressed, some members who were approaching their senior year approached Brother Sanderl, telling him they wanted to continue to live in community as they prepared to transition into the larger world. “So we launched the Santiago Community,” he said.

Santiago is in its first year with 34 seniors; the Lasallian community currently tops out at 24.

Brother Sanderl is both pleased and surprised by the enthusiastic unfolding of the two communities. “It has been a very healthy development. As you can imagine, though, each community’s personality depends on the students in them. They create the group energy and it can change from year to year.”

This year’s Lasallian group is clearly dedicated to living out de La Salle’s motto, “enter to learn, leave to serve,” said Lily Manderville, the community leader. “We’re really interested in being in service here as well as taking it to St. Martin de Porres.”

The 24 students have formed into two-and three-member teams so that at least one group is at the West Oakland school each school day.

But all is not seriousness and service, Manderville noted. The day before she spoke with The Voice, she had organized a tailgate party for her colleagues. After dining on hot dogs and hamburgers, the group went to a big basketball game on campus.

Carolyn Morison, a Santiago community leader, is a newcomer to the program. But since she worked for Brother Sanderl during the year it began, she had the background and the facts. “Plus, a couple of my friends enjoyed it, especially the living in community aspect.”

Morison now understands why. “There is such strong support. We are all going through the same things. Most of us are seniors and we are having the same stresses, such as going for job interviews.”

Getting together to discuss their common religious beliefs is another part of the binding glue. And then, there is also the old fashioned aspect of neighborliness, something often missing from contemporary culture. “Everyone wants to be together,” said Morison, who is in the fourth year of a five-year teacher’s certification program. When people are having a hard time, it is easier to get through it when there is group support, she reflected.

Like their Lasallian brothers and sisters, the Santiago Community is involved in community service. Last semester they organized a Halloween party on campus for inner-city kids, including youngsters at St. Martin de Porres School and the Lasallian Educational Opportunities Center (LEO Center) both in Oakland, and Cambridge School in Concord.

At Thanksgiving, they did a joint food basket project with the Lasallians and collected enough to fill 12 baskets for a local shelter. On April 26, they will volunteer at a Habitat for Humanity project in the East Bay.

Once Morison moves into the master’s phase of her teacher’s certification program, she will relinquish her campus community because graduate students cannot live in the dorms. But the faith-service spirit of John Baptist de La Salle will continue to frame her life, wherever she is, she vows.

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