San Leandro, CA – The official Earth Day theme for 2026, “Our Power, Our Planet,” feels especially meaningful for the faculty, students, and parents at Assumption School, who have taken that message of collective action and community service to heart for a while now. In the last few years, they have been building on activities and curriculum that nurture consciousness and care for the environment, starting with their own campus and surrounding neighborhood.
The third graders at Assumption have been getting life lessons in making an impact on the local community. For the last four years, they have adopted three storm drains. Armed with trash bags, the class walks around the neighborhood twice a month, stopping at the most littered curbs to pick up trash and clear storm gutters.
This spring, the class also took on a project to build safe nesting places for local wildlife. The project began when Christine Wolf, the school’s naturalist and instructional aide, found out that Sulphur Creek Nature Center in Hayward needed a nest box for one of their injured screech owls. Gathering donated supplies from families and Home Depot, the students (with the help of faculty and parents) built a box for the screech owl, as well as four additional barn owl boxes that were donated to the City of San Leandro to post in local parks for natural rodent control.
Other school eco-projects at Assumption are happening closer to the classroom, in the garden and animal dwellings. Each grade has scheduled time for small groups to plant, water, feed chickens and rabbits, deliver food scraps to the composter, and observe the bees that live at the school. Mrs. Wolf also brings special visitors from her animal rescue and education business called Critter Quest, such as a chinchilla, corn snake, tortoise, and tarantula. These sessions are integrated as part of science lessons, writing assignments, and other interdisciplinary projects. Currently, students are collecting seeds from the garden to donate back to the San Leandro and Castro Valley seed libraries. “We got the seeds to plant our garden from the libraries, and now we’d like to have it go full circle,” Mrs. Wolf explained. “We want the kids to experience that giving back is rewarding.”
Much of the evolution and growth of the school’s sustainability program can be attributed to Mrs. Wolf—along with the rabbits and chickens that she first brought to Assumption. With over 30 years of experience working as a naturalist at Sulphur Creek Nature Center, Los Gatos Birdwatcher, and Critter Quest, Wolf’s excitement and fascination with the natural world has spread to the students. “Students at Assumption School have developed an ecological world view because Mrs. Wolf helps them be aware of the small things they can do to make the world a better place,” noted Lana Rocheford, Assumption School’s principal. “Her knowledge of local fauna and flora as well as our impact on these creatures help us to truly care for God’s creation through the lens of compassion and love. I’m so grateful that the passion of Mrs. Wolf and the learning of our students come together in such a beautiful way!”
“Ultimately, it’s the trust and opportunity that I’m given at Assumption and by Mrs. Rocheford to keep investing in these activities that’s important in keeping the momentum going,” added Wolf. “That’s what’s special about our school and what we’re doing here.”