Happy New Year’s Brothers!  I hope your Christmas and New Year’s were peaceful, filled with family and friends, and joyous.  (And, maybe a little of feasting, football, basketball, and enjoying the season.)

The New Year brings us more opportunities to serve our priests, our parish and our community! 

Here are your opportunities to serve:

19 January Saint Vincent de Paul Fundraiser Luncheon – Our Brother Frank Feraco, one of the hard workers at Saint Vincent de Paul will be selling tickets to the Saint Vincent de Paul luncheon at the Outback, Thursday, January 19 at 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM.  For a $20 donation, you will get a build Your Own “Chicken on the Barbie” sandwich, with French fries and ice cream with chocolate sauce.  The Outback is a wonderful partner to the community in these luncheon fundraisers with most of the money going directly to our local Saint Vincent de Paul operations.  If you can, join our Brother Knights who work at Saint Vincent de Paul’s in a multitude of jobs and help Saint Vincent de Paul help our community.  This would be a good opportunity to take your wife or family member(s) out for lunch and do something good for the community at the same time.

22 January Free-Throw Competition – we need four or five brothers to come out on Sunday, 22 January from 8:00 AM through noon, to help our brother Council, Our Lady of the Mountains Council #10799 run the annual Free-Throw Competition.  Our brother, the late Frank Benson, was the driving force behind this annual event.  Council #10799 is leading the sponsorship this year with our assistance.  Your assistance in this event would be a most worthy tribute to our brother Frank.  This is also a great opportunity to meet and enjoy the company of our brothers in Council #10799.  It is my hope we can find more and more ways to work together with our local brother councils and this is a great way to move that goal along.  So, come out and join me as we help Council #10799 provide this great youth oriented activity for the community.

29 January Community Wide Ecumenical Ministry Fair - The fair will be held on Sunday, January 29th between noon and 3:00 PM at the Apache Middle School.  Your Bishop Salpointe Council #4584 will be a major part of the event.  Father Greg, in his Chaplain’s Corner for January, on this website’s Home Page has described the event and our participation much better than I ever could.  Please read his comments and dedicate yourself to helping your Council and fellow brothers feed over 300 attendees using the Food Wagon.  We don’t get many chances to satisfy all the cornerstones of our charter (parish, community, charity, brotherhood) and set the example for the community.  This is our chance to shine!  We need brothers on Saturday, January 28th to move tables, chairs, grills, set up the food wagon, etc. and on the 29th to do the cooking, cleaning, and in general show what great guys we are.  We hope to be able to have our brochures and meet with the folks and explain what we do for the community.  Great times, great opportunity!  Feel free to call me or the DGK, Larry Powers to volunteer.

11 February The 22nd Annual Catholic Appeal Dinner.  This year’s theme is “Be Co-Worker’s in His Vineyard.  You are encouraged to be both co-workers in His vineyard and co-workers in your Knights of Columbus Hall as your assistance is needed to serve, bus, clean, and otherwise make this a memorable occasion for the parish.  Remember, brothers, this is our signature event, our gift to the parish, and a key to a successful ACA campaign.  Over 40% of the money pledged and contributed to the ACA comes from this one event.  This year we will be blessed with Bishop Kicanas’ presence for Mass and the Dinner.  So, while your wives and family enjoy the social time and dinner, you have the opportunity to serve your fellow parishioners and ensure everyone has a most memorable time.  If you don’t help serve, you can certainly attend and contribute.   Please attend the 5:00 PM Mass, grab your check book, and head over to the Knights of Columbus Hall.  You will see your Grand Knight and a bunch of your officers and brother Knights in their black aprons ready to make this event the best ever.  And, when you hear someone say the dinner is free, you could remind them, “The dinner is no-cost to the parish, it is not free!”  Thanks for your support of the ACA Dinner, brothers.

20 April. 26th Annual Cornerstone Gala.  The Catholic Foundation for the Diocese of Tucson, Stewardship and Charitable Giving is honoring the Diocese Knights of Columbus this year at their Gala.  It will be held at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort on Friday, April 20th, beginning at 6:00 PM.  I hope we can assemble a significant number of Knights from Council 4584 to attend and represent our Council and Saint Andrew the Apostle parish community.  I will be passing on more information as it becomes known.  This is a great way to do some back patting for all your work and effort. 

I want to thank everyone who turns out for the meetings and the work.  We see many of the same faces at meetings, events and programs and it would certainly be great if more of the brothers, who are able to, would turn up for the meetings, volunteer for the work parties and events, and participate in the programs.  Attending an occasional meeting or helping with a program or work event, when you have some free time, would be very much appreciated.  If you need help getting to an event, call one of the officers.  If you have a suggestion, let an officer know.  After all, it’s your Council and your parish, too.   Take part!  If it's too much trouble, you may want to re-examine what the Knights of Columbus is all about and why you joined.  We are a great bunch of Catholic gentlemen and would like to welcome you back into the active Council, its great fun and very fulfilling.    To all those Brothers who are always there for every reason, thanks!  You are appreciated and your brotherhood is enjoyed.  You are what makes the Knights of Columbus a success, locally and world-wide and the “strong right arm” of the Church.