Grand Knights Corner

This month, I would like us to reach out to the Brother Knights of our Council that we don’t see on a regular basis. I also encourage Council members to engage with each other and participate in Council events.
For those who are local, whether you have never been to a meeting or have not been for some time, please stop by for a meeting! The second Tuesday of the month promptly starting at 7pm is the business our meeting at St. Peters Mission Residence. It normally lasts about one hour where you can hear all the great programs we do during the month and plan for following months. We will also be glad to hear any fresh ideas that you may have to contribute to our council’s success!
For those who are not local, we would still love to hear from you from time to time. Drop a line to by using one of the following methods: kofc8297.org, select “Contact” and enter data, Email us at [email protected] or write to us at KofC Council 8297, PO Box 2277, Poulsbo, WA 98370. Hope to hear from you soon!
Vivat Jesus!
John Wahlfors, Grand Knight

Faith Programs

Pope’s Monthly Reflection:  For Parishes, “We pray that parishes, placing communion at the center, may increasingly become communities of faith, fraternity and welcome towards those in most need.”

Supreme Chaplain Challenge:  “I challenge you to mindfully practice curbing your tongue, particularly avoiding taking the Lord’s name in vain.  Second, I challenge you to seek to grow in your respect for God as a catholic man by participating in the Faith in Action, Into the Breach program.”

Lent: Ash Wednesday on 22 February begins the season of Lent this year.  Our parish normally conducts Lentin prayer/reflection sessions on Fridays of Lent.  An announcement should be forthcoming in the St. Olaf parish newsletter with dates and times for these events.  Participation by Knights and their families contributes to the Council’s Spiritual Reflection category of the Faith in Action program.

Prayer: Prayer to St. Valentine
Dear Saint and glorious martyr,
Teach us to love unselfishly and to find great joy in giving.
Enable all true lovers to bring out the best in each other.
Let them love each other in God and in God in each other. Amen.

Community Programs

Washington State Adopt-a-Highway:  Our Council participates in our state’s highway cleanup program. Our assigned area is Highway 3 from Falkner Rd NE to Hood Canal bridge (2 Miles).  We alternate sides of the highway to clean on each cleanup event.  Our next cleanup event is scheduled for 11 February, however that may need to change due to a conflict with our audit, also scheduled for the same day. The conflict will be resolved at our upcoming Officers Meeting on February 9th so stay tuned. The cleanup crew meets at St. Olaf’s parking lot at 9am for a safety brief and issue of required equipment, then carpool to cleanup site. Please come help us keep our highway clean.  The more people participating…the faster we can finish this noble task!

KC HELP: Our KC HELP effort has recently taken on a new dimension because of our expansion into the St. Vincent de Paul facility at 1137 N. Callow in Bremerton. Our Brother Knights in Bremerton have stepped up big time by staffing our location on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM. Our first month of operation saw an upswing in activity in that portion of Kitsap County and we expect the pace to continue to expand. In the month of January, we helped 111 people with 240 pieces of equipment with a total value returned to the community of over $60,000.

If you would like to serve in some capacity in this vibrant and essential service to our community, contact Larry Devlin or complete the volunteer application linked here. We particularly could use help in accounting, grant research and writing, website development, procedure/policy development.

Our KC HELP website is www.kchelpkitsap.org and our Facebook handle is @kchelpwestwa

Family Programs

Family Reflection: A Good Friend:  When we see someone doing good, we are inspired to do good things, too.  The opposite is also true.  Children whose consciences are still being formed can be easily led into sin by bad examples of their friends. Be watchful about the company children keep and encourage friendships with those who do good. 

Scholarship Program: Now is the time to start the annual scholarship award process.  Come to the next membership meeting and join in the planning process.  We need at least three volunteers to comprise the selection committee!  This program helps a graduating high school senior of our parish to get started at college, university, or a trade school.

Life Programs

40 Days for Life: Spring 2023 campaign starts on February 22^nd and runs to April 2^nd.  The core hours for this event are Monday through Friday 9am-4pm.  The event is located adjacent to the Planned Parenthood facility, 723 NE Riddell Rd. Bremerton.  Signups can be made at [email protected].

February Birthdays

Calendar

Refer to our Calendar Page

Good of the Order

Congratulations to Matt Wurzbacher for achieving 50 years continuous service as a member of the Knights of Columbus!

Prayers are requested for the following:

For the health of Brothers Jerry Goodwin, Tom Redfern, Dan Dahl, Roy Behling, and Jake Steiner.

For the repose of the soul of Jeanne Flanders, mother-in-law of Brother John Rebar

Brother Knights,
Please accept our apologies for not getting a newsletter out since last October. Our only excuse is that we have replatformed the website and now lack the expertise to formulate a newsletter in real time as WordPress is wont to do. So, please bear with us as we learn. If anyone has WordPress experience and would like to help us out, it would be greatly appreciated.

In the meantime, since October, we have actually been active in many ways by holding several food drives that benefitted ShareNet in Kingston during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. We’ve also carried on with our roadside cleanup efforts and charged ahead with KC HELP and the increasing demands that it requires.

Frankly, our calendar is somewhat limited due to waning participation by our members so the men who have stepped forward are necessarily limited by their own schedules and family commitments. We are immensely thankful that they have “kept the wheels on” the Council throughout Covid and as we emerge from all the restrictions we’ve experienced. Our own parish restrictions have prevented our usual fundraisers and fellowship opportunities which have led to many of our members migrating to other parishes where parish life has long ago returned to normal. We are anxiously awaiting St. Olaf’s to do the same, while we explore ways that we can serve our community.

Our next near-term events include another roadside cleanup on February 11th. We will meet at St. Olaf’s at 9 AM and expect to be completed by about noon. The end time actually depends on how many members and family members over 16 show up and lend a hand. Then, on March 18th, we’ll hold a Tootsie Roll drive to benefit Special Olympics and the disabled in our own community. Watch for a Sign Up invitation to join in on that very worthwhile endeavor.

As always, KC HELP could always use additional hands as that program continues to be a monumental success. We finished last year by providing over 2,000 durable medical equipment items totaling nearly $700,000 to 1,200 members of our community. When mileage and volunteer hours are included, the total is just shy of $800,000. Well done to all who make this happen!

We have done a refresh on our Power of 10 outreach so you may be getting a phone call or email from one of the officers to simply check in with you on a personal level. If you don’t hear from anyone, it may be because we have outdated contact information. That said, please take a moment and update your contact information either here or on the link to the right.

Vivat Jesus!
John Wahlfors

January Birthdays

Roy Behling 4th, Igmin Martinez-Franyutti 6th, Gary Popish 18th, David Lasser 22th, Matthew Wurzbacher 23rd, Jesse Cockerham 24th, Trey Huska 25th.

Refund Support Vocations Program (RSVP)

As the right arm of the church, Knights of Columbus are committed to providing moral, financial, and spiritual support to our future priests at all stages of their formation.
Our council’s current assigned seminarian is Sylvester Rosario who is now studying Pre-Theology at Mount Angel Seminary. Please contribute by giving a monetary donation at meetings or at the link provided on the right side of this page. Another way is by participating in the “Pop Cans for Priests” empty pop can collection behind the kitchen at St. Olaf’s.

From the Community Director

Our Highway 3 clean-up event is scheduled for 9 am Saturday, February 11th. We will meet at the St. Olaf parking lot for a briefing, issue of required safety items, bags, and trash grabbers. Hope to see you there! “Many hands make light work.”

KC HELP

Our expansion into the southern part of Kitsap County made a huge step by taking St. Vincent de Paul up on its invitation to open a shop in their facility in Bremerton. We were provided with a great space on the second floor above the food bank and will staff the new location on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 10:30 AM to 12:30 AM for drop offs and pick ups via the Food Bank entrance. If this is something that you would like to be involved with, please contact Larry Devlin so we can get you started. Our volunteer needs are across the board but one in particular would be very helpful. We really need someone to answer the phone!

From the Life Director

40 Days for Life: Runs from Wednesday, February 23rd to Sunday, April 2nd. Sign up for a slot at https://www.40daysforlife.com/en/bremerton.

If your schedule is too erratic to sign up for a slot, just show up any day, any time. Core hours are 9am-4pm, Monday – Friday.

Fourth Degree Assembly Notes

Our next Assembly Meeting will be held on January 24th and will be at St. Peter’s Mission in Suquamish at 6:30 pm. Main order of business is a discussion of upcoming events and activities. Refreshments will be available.

Membership

As always, be sure to invite any and all Catholic men over 18 years of age to join us. Our online membership application is available on www.kofc.org. New members receive free membership their first year by using entering BLESSEDMCGIVNEY in the coupon code field on the application.

Logo Clothing

You may have noticed the sharp looking green shirts that fellow members of our Council have sported at our events. Contact Larry Devlin if you have not yet had a chance to get your shirt. $30 each for button-down collar shirts and $20 for polos. We also have khaki aprons, but you’ll need to see Financial Secretary Tom Musha for those. They are $15 each.  New 4^th Degree polo shirts are now available at $20 each.

From our Insurance Assistant General Agent, Dan O’Keefe

I hope you will take a second to look at the financial topic I have included in this message. Some people may not realize the importance of this financial issue. Later in life they may wish that they had given it more attention. Take a look and you decide:

https://ebriefme.org/Response/HtmlTemplateLongVersion.aspx?d=123&r=6hRPEEJnNkWa0nSG6OMcgA

So what do you need to do to assess your situation? Contact your agent today and schedule an appointment. Let your Knights of Columbus field agent, your brother Knight, be your compass as you navigate the uncertainty of today’s financial tides.

Good of the Order

Pease pray for all our Brother Knights who through their charity are supporting their friends and neighbors in this time of need, for our Parish that we may come through this crisis with our faith and our commitment to charity stronger than ever, and for those in our community who are battling the Corona virus, that the Great Physician will heal them and their families.

Members, Family and Parish members in need of prayer:
Ann Wahlfors, Cyndie Huetter, Julie Beer, Monica DeCarlo, Roy Behling, Jim Lee, Kim Washburn, and Larry Ensor.
Also keep in our prayers:
Jake Steiner, Active Duty Military/Veterans, First Responders, Elected officials, Hurricane victims, Ukraine War victims, Supreme Court Justices, Right to Life.
Prayers in Memoriam for Members, Family and Parish members:

Brother Knights in the Lord’s Care