The Knight's Shield - March 2019

Still waiting for the early spring to arrive as forecast by the groundhog!

Lent is arriving the first week of March, which also means the return of our Fish Fry! See the Fish Fry article for more information.

On February 3rd, the Lord called home Brother Knight Clarence Gajewski. Clarence was a WWII veteran and a Knight for over 72 years! Thank you to Phil Mularski, George Loewen, Gino Gattari, Lino, Jerry Hund, Tom Pardo and Ted Czarny for attending the Rosary led by Phil and George. Please remember Clarence in your prayers.

Our council just completed a very successful membership drive. Led by Membership Director Phil Mularski, we had eleven new candidates sign up for our council! Eight of them just went through the Admission Degree. Six of the eight candidates went through the Second and Third Degree ceremonies also! Please welcome John Anderson, Larry Bukowski, Gerry Caruso, Ken Gonko, Peter Hopersberger, John Matway, Paul Parker and Michael Roehrig! We are getting the remaining three candidates scheduled for their degree ceremony soon. Something this successful had many people helping Phil. Thank you to Rick Okerhjelm, Craig Thomson, Nick Oliveri, Leon Berdy, Art Krygowski, Ted Czarny, Phil Bonnette, Ken Krause and Mike Hartel who were on the Membership Committee, Speaker at Mass or Proposer during the past recruitment drive. Well done! I know many of you have been working on getting their brother Catholic’s to join our order. Don’t be discouraged, just give them a gentle reminder occasionally that God is still in need of their Time and Talent!

We had a very successful Pancake breakfast in February. We served about 220 meals and rose over $2500 (over $1000 in cash donations) for the St. Louis Center – which is a caring, residential, family living and learning environment providing for the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of children and adults with intellectual and development disabilities. Father Enzo Addari, SdC SLC CEO and Brother Knight was present and celebrated 9:30 Mass with Father Ron. Thank you everyone who helped in the kitchen, dining room, attended and contributed to this event. A special thanks to Rick Okerhjelm who organized the food and supplies for the event which is a big undertaking! Great job everyone!

Thank you to Jeff Gapczynski, George Loewen, Ron Marrese, Craig Thomson and Dave Wisneski for volunteering to help the pantry deliver food to the homebound. This is another example of charitable works we can do to help those less fortunate in our community and assist another of our parish lay ministries.

The council received our 2017-18 Father McGivney & Founders Award at the State Chaplain’s Membership Tribute Banquet on Saturday, February 23 at DeCarlo’s. This award is the result of the hard work by our council during the last calendar year. We are continuing the hard work this calendar year! Thank you for everything you do! Representing our council at the banquet were Father Jerry (Council Chaplain), Ken and Christine Krause, Art and Janice Krygowski and Mike and Karla Hartel.

The council has elected our representatives for the annual State Convention.

First Delegate: Mike Hartel, Grand Knight Second Delegate: Tom Gray, Deputy Grand Knight First Alternate: Ray Ignatowski, Financial Secretary Second Alternate: Rick Okerhjelm, Family Director

Don’t forget to sell the state raffle tickets received in the mail. Be sure you place our council number on the stub and our council will receive $1 for every tick-et sold! This is the major fundraiser for the state.

Thank you for signing up to receive the Holy Family Statue at Mass in support of Vocations. If you have not yet signed up, please consider doing so. The bind-er is located in the church gathering space. Thank you!

Reminder, that our March General Meeting is an Open house Pot Luck. The entire family is welcome. Please plan to attend and bring a dish to pass! Meeting begins at 6:30pm.

Look for the sign-up sheets for our next Texas Holdem and the MI Drive (Tootsie Roll) which are in April but will be here before you know it!

Please see the article for our council camping trip coming up in August. If you plan to camp with us you can now make your reservation!

Thank you to all of you who have been at the meetings regularly. Please consider calling someone you haven’t seen for a while and ask how they’re doing. See if they’re in need of a ride or friendly reminder when the next meeting takes place.

Vivat Jesus,
Mike Hartel