2025-2026 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, June 9th 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, July 14th.

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 or place your name for nomination in the new slate, please notify Grand Knight Mark Maruda or Financial Secretary Larry Devlin

Scholarship

Our scholarship committee has announced that Kate Carver will be awarded our 2026 Scholarship. Stay tuned as we coordinate an opportunity to present it to her.

Roadside Cleanup

We will conduct our quarterly roadside cleanup on June 20th. We will meet at St. Olaf’s at 9 AM and carpool to the site from there. This is a quick project if we at least 8 Brother Knights are able to participate. We should be done by noon if that is the case. Please mark your calendars and come along!

Farewell to Fr. Mark

Our Council will be grilling up some meat at St. Olaf’s following the 10:30 Mass on June 21 in honor of Fr. Mark and his service to our Parish Famiy over the past several years. He will be missed! Also note that his anniversary of Ordination is on June 9th so please express your congratulations to him.

Welcome to Fr. Phil Raether

As Fr. Phil takes over on July 1st, we have been asked to help move some of his boxed belongings on June 28th. Stay tuned as details firm up and please join in if you are available that day.

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 6,018 items to 3,221 people totaling $1,550,580 in value, $2,152,750 when including hours and mileage.

Inception to date, KC HELP has provided 19,060 items to 10,186 people totaling $5,488,925 in value, $6,417,208 when including hours and mileage.

This past month was another record-breaker as we helped 305 people with 565 items. Also notable is that we helped our 10,000th person on May 11!

The big news this month is that we opened our new Service Center in Bremerton with a ribbon cutting on May 21st. We were honored to have State Deputy Tom Williams and State Secretary Scott Hulse on hand, as well as Bremerton Mayor Greg Wheeler and Shipyard Command JD Crinklaw.

KC HELP will be recognized by the Kitsap Community Foundation with the 2026 Exemplary Nonprofit Service Award on June 5th 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.

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!

Happy belated to these Brother Knights who had May Birthdays 

Knight of the Month

Brother Jacob Parmely is our Knight of the Month. Brother Jacob became enthusiastically involved at almost the moment he joined the Council this past month. He volunteered to help with our last Pancake Breakfast and our Food Drive in Kingston that benefitted ShareNet. We really appreciate his quick assimilation into our Council and his willingness to help wherever he can. Thanks Brother Jacob for all you do for our Council and our Community! We look forward your future engagement!

Family of the Month

Our Family of the Month is Michael and Sharon Haynes. Both are involved as Eucharistic Ministers and Michael is a tireless creator of religious art using his 3-D printer. He has volunteered his skills to fabricate parts for KC HELP that are not otherwise available to purchase. His passion has led to his donating religious art to our Families of the Month over the past several months. Thanks Michale and Sharon for all you do for our Council and our Parish!

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.

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Jim Rebar, who passed away recently.

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, 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