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, March 11th at 7:00 PM at the St. Peter’s Residence House in Suquamish. Our following meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 8th.
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 – David Meier
Deputy Grand Knight – Mark Maruda
Chancellor – Vacant
Advocate – John Rebar
Recorder – David Graves
Financial Secretary – Larry Devlin
Treasurer – Roy Behling
Warden – Leo Beer
Inside Guard- Vacant
Outside Guard – Vacant
Trustee 3 Year – John Wahlfors
Trustee 2 Year – Alan Arnesen
Trustee 1 Year – Gary Fahey
Lecturer- Gary Fahey
Note that we will be working on putting a new slate of officers together to be voted upon in the June Membership Meeting. The new slate of officers will be posted for your consideration 2 months before that June Meeting, i.e., initially in April. So, now is a great time to let us know if you would like to serve in some capacity as an officer of our Council. We need some new blood with new ideas so don’t be shy! We welcome you!
St. Patrick’s Day Dinner
Our Council is hosting a St. Patrick’s Day Dinner at St. Olaf’s on Sunday, March 16th at 5 PM. We are taking reservations now and until March 14th in order to know how much food to prepare. Let your friends and family know that reservations are needed and suggested donations can be made online by scanning the QR Code on this flyer:
In the meantime, we will be needing our members to consider helping out in some way, from food prep that will begin about 9 AM, decorating and setting up the hall, food service during the meal, bar tending (yes, we have a permit from the State), entertainment (probably just background music but someone needs to make it happen), and finally, cleanup afterward. Leo Beer has graceously volunteered to lead this effort but he can’t do it all! Please contact him to let him know how you would like to help.
Pancake Breakfast
On Sunday, March 2nd, we will hold our next pancake breakfast. We thank those who were able to help out during last event, most especially the great turn-out of our newest members who have all been a great blessing for us!
We now support breakfast after both the 8:00 Mass and the 10:30 AM Mass. We will need extra help for both Mass times. Setup will begin at 6:30 AM, serving at 9:00 AM, followed by cleaning and re-setup at 10:30 AM, then serving and clean up at 11:30 AM. With sufficient help, we should be able to be finished with cleanup by about 1:30 PM. Please come join us during some or all of those phases. We really need you for this breakfast since 2 of our lead members, Nick Weber and Leo Beer, will both be out of town, leaving big shoes to fill.
We are especially thankful for the several of our newest members for their enthusiasm and willingness to help with this important parish ministry.
Stations of the Cross and Fish Dinner
Our Council has been asked by the Parish to lead the Stations of the Cross on March 21 starting at 6 PM, followed by a Fish Dinner, the scope of which has not yet been planned. We look for the help of anyone who would like to help plan and make it happen. We will discuss at the Officer’s meeting just prior to the regular Membership Meeting on March 11th.
Roadside Cleanup Effort
We completed a KC HELP Roadside Cleanup effort on February 15th. We had such a great turn-out of 8 members that we were able to complete the entire job and were back at St. Olaf’s by a little after 11 AM. Many thanks to Leo Beer, John Rebar, David Graves, Victor Golcher, Larry Devlin, Rick Rebar, Brian Tucker, and Ryan Dodge. With this crew, we were able to complete both sides of 2 miles of Highway 3 immediately South of the Hood Canal Bridge. Well done and many thanks to all of you!
New Members
We will plan to hold another Charity, Unity, and Fraternity Exemplification on Tuesday, March 25th at St. Olaf’s as we have at least 2 men who are planning to join our Council. Two of most recent members were not able to attend the exemplificaiton in January but did avail themselves of the online video so we are very happy to welcome Gavin Dewitt and Mark Meyer as our newest members!
Reminder: Dues and Donations
We still have just a few members who have not yet paid their dues, which were due and payable on January 15. If you are among those who have not yet paid, please do so as soon as possible.
For your convenience, we have several payment options:
- By check, made out to Knights of Columbus Council 8279 and either mailed to Larry Devlin at 15975 Lindsey Lane NE, Poulsbo, WA 98370 or personally delivered, e.g., at church or a Council meeting.
- By credit card using our form at https://bit.ly/8297dues or by via QR Code.
- By going to our Council’s website at www.kofc8297.org and clicking on the “Pay Your Council Dues” link on the right side of the page.
- By calling me at 360-981-3179 and providing your credit card info for Larry Devlin to input the payment information.
We also ask you to update your contact information and your next-of-kin details. You can do this online using this link https://bit.ly/8297updatecontact
If you are a 4th Degree Member, you may also pay your Assembly dues online at https://bit.ly/2433dues.
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 4,560 items to 2,262 people totaling $1,339,575 in value, $1,688,852 when including hours and mileage.
Inception to date KC HELP has provided 11,952 items to 6,391 people totaling $3,598,720
in value, $4,083,786 when including hours and mileage.
Kitsap Great Give
KC HELP is a registered charity, eligible for donations for the Kitsap Great Give that is now going on through March 11th. We will be giving a pulpit announcement after all Masses on March 1st and 2nd. This was a highly successful fundraiser for KC HELP last year and we look forward to another sucessful one this year, particularly as we continue to pursue a more permanent Service Center location in Bremerton. Please consider supporting your Brother Knights who are working every day on KC HELP:
Knight of the Month
We recognized Mike Courtright as our January Knight of the Month for his continued and essential support flipping all those pancakes at our monthly Pancake Breakfasts! We very much appreciate his ever-presence and his long hours on his feet and in the heat. Thank you Brother Mike!
Family of the Month
We recognized Ken and Emma VanAcker as our January Family of the Month. They were both key players in the recent St. Vincent de Paul efforts to provide food for families in need during he Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
Please let Grand Knight David Meier or any of our officers if you have nominations for either Knight of the Month or Family of Month.
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.
Pray for the repose of the soul of Gavin Dewitt’s father-in-law and for the repose of the soul of Jerry Goodwin. And, pray for the health of Mark Stearns, Ellen Strickland, Mary Therese Bartlett, Leigh Bartlett, Julie Beer, Karen Behling, Tony DeCarlo, Gary Fahey, Steve Murray, Emmanual Rivas, Storm Smole, Nancy Rogers, Theresa Spiess, Bob Tomas, Glennyce Thomas, friend (fighting cancer) of John Rebar. Also, we are praying for Jim Kellogg of Council 6706 and a KC HELP volunteer who recently suffered his second stroke.
Please pray for our service men (particularly Council members) and service women and our many KC HELP clients.
We also would like to keep Christina Lara and Gabby McCracken in our prayers as they fulfill their FOCUS missions.
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