2024-2025 Top Council in the State of Washington

and
4-Star Council

Reminder: Membership Meetings

This is a reminder that if you would like to be involved in our Council’s decision-making or have ideas that might be beneficial to our mission, to attend our upcoming Membership Meeting on Tuesday evening, January 13th at 7:00 PM in the basement of St. Olaf’s Gallager Center. Our following meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 10th.

We will discuss events and activities for the upcoming months and would value your input and suggestions as we move forward. Thanks to everyone for all your support.

Our Officers

Chaplain – Father Albert Arulappan
Grand Knight – Mark Maruda
Deputy Grand Knight – Vacant
Chancellor – Brian Tucker
Advocate – John Rebar
Recorder – David Graves
Financial Secretary – Larry Devlin
Treasurer – Roy Behling
Warden – Leo Beer
Inside Guard- Allen Beck
Outside Guard – Vacant
Trustee 3 Year – David Meier
Trustee 2 Year – John Wahlfors
Trustee 1 Year – Alan Arnesen
Lecturer- Gary Fahey

If you would like to serve in one of the vacant positions, please notify Grand Knight Mark Maruda or Financial Secretary Larry Devlin

St. Olaf’s Monthly Breakfast

Our next breakfast is Sunday, January 4th. 

Please mark your calendars for upcoming 1st Sundays and come join us in one or all of the various phases beginning at 6:30 AM to get set up and do meal preparation work, at 9:30 AM after Mass for cooking, serving, and restoration, at 11:30 after Mass for the same, plus clean up, which usually lasts until about 1:00 PM. Wear those green shirts!

Thank you to all who participate in making our monthly breakfasts a great success. Many hands truly do make lighter work for all, plus the benefit of great fraternalism. Thanks to everyone who has been able to join us.

December Food Drive

We held our Food Drive on December 20th at the Kingston Safeway where we collected 1,973 pounds of food and almost $900 to benefit our own St. Vincent de Paul Conference in support of their Christmas food baskets. Our little KC HELP trailer was fully loaded and delivered to St. Olaf’s. St. Vincent de Paul used around 1,200 pounds for their baskets and the remaining 700+ pounds were delivered to Fishline. Many thanks to all who were able to join us on that cold and windy Saturday. It was so incredibly refreshing to witness the kindness and generosity of our community toward those who are struggling to get a decent meal.

Exemplification of Charity, Unity, and Fraternity
January 11th

We are planning our next Exemplification on January 11th immediately following Coffee and Donuts at St. Olaf’s. We expect to start at about 12:30 PM. All are invited, including families, especially if you haven’t witnessed the new Exemplification. If you know of someone who should become a Knight, please invite them to join us by completing the application at bit.ly/joinuskofc.

Virtus Training through the Archdiocese of Seattle

Our Knights of Columbus Council 8297 at St. Olaf’s who are either being or likely to be a volunteer for Knights of Columbus activities in and around St. Olaf’s or St. Cecilia’s, that might involve vulnerable children or adults, necessitates that you get a background check and complete Virtus training through the Archdiocese of Seattle. So, with that, please create an account at https://virtusonline.org/virtus/ and go through the process of obtaining the certifications. This is in addition to any SAFE training and certifications through Knights of Columbus via Praesidium. They are two separate but similar programs that do not interface with one another so we have to do both. Thanks for attending to this as soon as you can so that we can remain compliant with Archdiocesan requirements.

Membership Dues

Council Membership Dues

You should have received billing notices by email and many of you have now paid your dues. For the rest of you, if you’ve lost the email or forgotten about it, please take care of your dues now now at this link: https://www.cognitoforms.com/KCHELP2/PayYourCouncilMembershipDues, or by scanning this QR Code:

Note, that if you are new to the Knights of Columbus since January 1, 2025, you are exempt from paying dues this year, however, if you would like to make a contribution to Pennies for Heaven, Least of All My Brethern (LAMB), or a simple donation to our Council, you may also do that using the same links.

Assembly Membership Dues

If you are a 4th Degree Member of our Assembly 2433, your dues are also due and notices have gone out by email. If you haven’t gotten around to it yet, please make your payment at this link: https://www.cognitoforms.com/KCHELP2/PayYourAssemblyMembershipDues, or by scanning this QR Code:

KC HELP

Our Brother Knight volunteers work tirelessly every day to assist people in need of specialized equipment as they deal with the physical effects of aging or recovery from surgeries or accidents. It’s difficult to adequately express the immense gratitude that we see day in and day out and to imagine how these people might have dealt with their difficult circumstances had KC HELP not been available to assist them. If this is something you would like to be involved in, please contact us at 360-981-3179 to join our other Brother Knights in this essential work. In fact, we will likely be calling for a work party to help get caught up on a mass influx equipment that has overwhelmed our regulars. Stay tuned for for more details.

In the last 12 Months KC HELP has provided 5,485 items to 2,868 people totaling $1,439,375 in value, $2,006,025 when including hours and mileage.

Inception to date, KC HELP has provided 16,616 items to 8,874 people totaling $4,829,890 in value, $5,634,946 when including hours and mileage.

Our Council has been an exceptional supporter of KC HELP, not only through the volunteer work of several of our members, but through financial support. Most recently, our Council donated the proceeds from our last Tootsie Roll Drive!

The big news this month is that we have begun the construction modifications needed for our new Service Center in Bremerton. This work will likely be completed before the end of the year, which means that we can begin the moving process from St. Vincent de Paul in Bremerton to our new location at 939 North Callow. Stay tuned!

Council 11789 Fundraiser for KC HELP

Holy Trinity Council 11789 is planning a Valentine’s Day Dinner/Dance as a social event for their Parish but the proceeds will go to benefit KC HELP’s Capital Campaign to raise funds for reducing the debt for the new building in Bremerton.  All are invited! Please save the date and plan to attend if you would like to support this effort. If you can’t attend, please consider donating to the KC HELP Capital Campaign at https://bit.ly/kchelpcapcampaign or by scanning this QR Code:

We will post more details via email as they come in.

Birthdays for January!

Happy Birthday to all of these Brother Knights!

Knight of the Month

Although not a current member of our Council, Brother Eric Chamberlin, now a member of Council 12251 at St. Cecelia, is a Past Grand Knight of our Council. Brother Eric, as a retired Navy SEABEE is frequently called upon by Fr. Mark to take on some significant projects at St. Cecelia, most notably is a recent ripout of about 50 feet of trip-hazardous sidewalk and pouring a new concrete sidewalk.  As you might expect, he did a beautiful job! He also oversaw our recent installation of a flagpole at the St. Cecelia School. Thanks Brother Eric for all you do and for your wonderful expertise that definitely has Fr. Mark’s attention!

Family of the Month

Michael & Deanna DeAscentiis and their son Christopher, are our Family of the Month.  Deanna orchestrated a food drive at her workplace that supplied the St. Vincent de Paul food baskets at Thanksgiving. Michael and Christopher were significant participants in our most recent food drive at the Kingston Safeway that supported the St. Vincent de Paul Christmas food baskets, which Michael also oversaw. He also distributed the 24 Coats for Kids that our Council provided to St. Vincent de Paul. Thank you to the DeAscentiis for you steady strong support to those among us who are going through difficult times.

4-Star Council Award

Our District Deputy has our 4-Star Council Award in hand and will present it in the coming weeks.. He did send a picture!  Thanks and Congratulations to all for making this incredible accomplishment possible!

Assembly 2433

We are working toward rejuvinating our 4th Degree Assembly by welcoming new members and holding monthly Membership Meetings on 3rd Tuesdays at 7 PM. In these initial meetings, we are becoming familiar with traditional protocols and rehearsing honor guard and sword handling techniques. If you would like to become involved in the Patriotic Degree, please come join us in these initial stages. We have agreed to provide a $200 stipend to the first 10 men toward the purchase of their 4th Degree uniforms so this is a great time to take advantage of a very generous opportunity.

Good of the Order

Pray for the health of all our Council’s Brother Knights as our members’ age demographic continues to increase. Specific prayer recipients are our Parish Family Priests Fr Mark Kiszelewski and Fr Albert Arulappan.

Prayers for the health and well-being of Brother Knights PSD Kim Washburn, Tony DeCarlo, Brian Poppell, Gary Fahey, Jim Kellog, David Lasser, Storm and Caroleen Smole, and Bob Tomas. Prayers for Prayers for Wayne Pridgen (friend of Ric Rebar), John Wahlfor’s granddaughter Emily, David Meier, Mike Gugeon (David Meiers’ friend),the McNally Family (Jim Bayer’s aunt), Bill Moriner, Jim Rebar, Nora Bell, Joe Bell’s wife, Steve Reichley and his son and daughter, Ellen Strickland, Mary Therese Bartlett, Leigh Bartlett, Julie Beer, Roy Behling’s wife Karen and daughter’s health, Larry Devlin’s sister-in-law, Anne Wahlfors, Steve Murray, Nancy Rogers, Henry and Cindy Huetter, and our service men (particularly council members) and service women and our many KC HELP clients. Pray to successfully retire the debt on property for KC HELP. We also keep Gabby McCracken in our prayers as she fulfills her FOCUS mission during the year. Also, we are praying for Jim Kellogg of Council 6706 and a KC HELP volunteer who continues to recover from his second stroke.

Handy Council-Related Links

If you would like a handy set of Council-related links that you can add to your phone’s home page, try this: bit.ly/m/8297