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, April 14th beginning with a light food fare at 6:00 PM, followed by an Officers Meeting at 6:30 PM and the Membership Meeting at 7:00 PM in the basement of St. Olaf’s Gallager Center. Our following meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 12th.

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 – Allen Beck
Financial Secretary – Larry Devlin
Treasurer – Roy Behling
Warden – Leo Beer
Inside Guard –  Vacant
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

Washington State Council Bulletin, Linked Here

Recent Events

St. Patrick’s Dinner

Our Council hosted our annual St. Patrick’s Dinner at St. Olaf’s on Sunday March 15th led by  Brothers Leo Beer and Nick Weber. There was plenty of food for everyone and then some! Many thanks for all who helped throughout the day, making this one of our best ever.

St. Olaf’s Monthly Pancake Breakfast

Our next breakfast is Sunday, May 3rd. 

We cancelled our April Pancake Breakfast due to it conflicting with Easter Sunday.

Please remember to 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!

Scholarship

Our scholarship opportunity is still open for applications for graduating Seniors registered at eitehr St. Olaf’s or St. Cecelia. Please pass the word. Applications are here and are open until May 10th.

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.

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 the last 12 Months KC HELP has provided 5,968 items to 3,103 people totaling $1,529,375 in value, $2,118,870 when including hours and mileage.

Inception to date, KC HELP has provided 18,040 items to 9,620 people totaling $5,213,725 in value, $6,085,585 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 KC HELP was recognized by the Kitsap Community Foundation with the 2026 Exemplary Nonprofit Service Award as a testament the value that our community sees in the incredible work of our many volunteer members of the Knights of Columbus and other volunteers who have joined in.

This award will be formally presented on June 5th at the Clearwater Casino. Any who would like to join us, please see this link.

If you would like to help get this building paid off, please consider donating to the KC HELP Capital Campaign at https://bit.ly/kchelpcapcampaign or by scanning this QR Code:

Birthdays this Month!

Happy Birthday to all of these Brother Knights!

Knight of the Month

Brother Wayne Stanton is our Knight of the Month. Brother Wayne has been ever-present since he joined us a few months ago. You will find him helping with Coffee and Donuts, Pancake Breakfasts, and our St. Patrick’s Dinner. He has regularly provided great insight for our upcoming projects at our regular Membership Meetings. We value his enthusiastic participation and look forward to his wonderful inspiration for all.  Thank you Brother Wayne, for all you do, especially in service to our country as a member of the US Navy at Trident Refit Facility!

Family of the Month

Our Family of the Month is Dan and Carol Bracher, both of whom are heavily involved in virtually all of our Parish activity. Dan, who leads by example, is a Eucharistic Minister and leads the weekly before-Mass Rosary, and recently took on a major endeavor to catch up the long overdue Parish facility maintenance needs. Carol is involved with Legion of Mary and is also ever-present when volunteers are needed for virtually anything going on at the Parish. We thank them for all they do for our Parish community!

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.

The latest Supreme 4th Degree Newsletter is  here

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, Nick Ogilvie, 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, 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.

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