Knights of Columbus
of the First Coast of Florida

Supreme State Council 11961 Insurance

 

Thanks to the efforts of Father Michael J. McGivney, assistant pastor of St. Mary's Church in New Haven and some of his parishioners, the Connecticut state legislature on March 29, 1882, officially chartered the Knights of Columbus as a fraternal benefit society. The Order is still true to its founding principles of charity, unity and fraternity.

 

The Knights  of Columbus were formed to render financial aid to members and their families. Mutual aid and assistance are offered to sick, disabled and needy members and their families. Social and intellectual fellowship is promoted among members and their families through educational, charitable, religious, social welfare, war relief and public relief works.

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The St Mary Knights of Columbus is in search of Catholic Men to aid in their endeavors to help those less fortunate. 

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In the past years, you have heard from former Grand Knights, Joe Jurec, Dan Nagy, John Picucci, and Ron Kiceina.  I am Richard Friese, the present Grand Knight.  They explained that in 1882, Father McGivney, a parish priest in Connecticut, saw many destitute widows and orphaned children, many were poor immigrants. To help keep these families together and provided for them, he founded the Knights of Columbus. Thus, the first concepts of the Knights became unity and charity. The concepts of fraternity and patriotism were added later.

Today we have grown to nearly 2 million members in 15, 000 councils worldwide. The Knights have raised more than $1.5 billion dollars and donated more than 690 million volunteer hours.

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These are incredible numbers, here is an example of our local flavor to bring it into perspective. 

 

• We assist with support for two seminarians of the Diocese of St. Augustine.

• We raised over $2,000 for the Whispering Meadows Ranch.

• We raised over $500 Special Olympics and ARC.  (Autism Research)

• Through our tootsie roll campaign, we donate to Purple Heart.

• We raised over $1,400 for the Flagler County tennis shoe for school children.

 

I say we did this and we did that, we did the volunteering, but it was you, our parishioners whose charity enabled us to do this, and we thank you. Every cent you have place in our baskets at the church door has gone to charity.  We want to keep it going and possibly do more and to do that, we need more men to join our council and help us achieve higher goals.

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Join us, one meeting a month and a few hours of volunteer work.  Please speak to any of the Knights wearing Blue shirts on the first Sunday of the month.

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Thank you and God Bless

Richard Friese

Grand Knight Council 11961