Still on the Christmas theme we helped organize our Parish’s Christmas Hamper project. Sixty hampers were made up and delivered. This was a project not only supported by the Knights, but also the CWL (Donna Dube). A special thank you to all those people who helped pick up food, organize the hampers and deliver them.
A last item before leaving the Christmas season involved the large Christmas Tree that so beautifully decorates our sanctuary during this season. A special thank you goes to Cecil Dust and John Benesh who are responsible for this project.
Other ongoing projects that we do to help our parishioners to socialize as well as for our fundraising is our Famous All You Can Eat Breakfasts and our Sunday Sundaes. Thanks to John Benesh, Pat Daley and Shawn Scherr who organize the breakfasts and John Benesh and myself who organize the Sunday Sundaes. Our breakfasts are probably the one event that gets more knights involved than any other activities we do.
Another ongoing project we started two years ago is a barbecue evening for the seniors at Sutherland Seniors home. This has been well received by the seniors and helps to give us a visible presence in our community.
Other ways we support our parish include Baptismal Passports where a small passport is given to each family at the Baptism of their child. A special thank you to Bill Reiter who looks after this project. Still with the parish theme our ongoing Mass and prayer cards which Andy Wilson does such a good job of organizing. Our support for our youth groups mainly the Peru Mission group not only in helping them with their fundraising, but in purchasing wheelchairs for them to distribute in Peru.
Some one time events we are involved in include setting up and taking down chairs for Christmas and Easter. Another onetime major project was in patching and repainting the walls in the hall, the hall entrance way, bar room, servery and our meeting room. Special thanks to Joe Brule, Dan Bittner, Dick Hollier and myself for tackling and completing this project.

In addition to helping and supporting all of these projects we have provided financial support for many groups including Columbus Bosco Homes, K of C Indoor Games, Blackstrap Youth Camp, Mt. Carmel’s Rock the Mount, Coats for Kids, CCO, and Queens House. There was also the support for our seminarians and the latest Sanctum Survivor where we supported Bishop Don during his homeless jaunt around the city. Actually the money went to support a new HIV Centre being established on Ave M.

Now I would like to move into making two special presentations. The first one is to our Knight of the Year. At this time I would ask John Deptuck to please come forward to be recognized. John puts a tremendous amount of time into not only our council, but into other areas as well. He was our chancellor this year and as such attended most meetings and always has some very positive comments to make. He is one of our bar captains and with that role probably works at over a dozen events over the year. John also helps at most of our breakfasts and is often the last person to leave. In addition to working with our council John is an integral member of the organizing committee for the Saskatoon K of C Indoor Games where he serves as treasurer. As such he puts in countless hours dealing with the finances. Outside of the Knights John is an active slow pitch umpire. All of this he does in addition to keeping his accounting business ProCity Accounting running smoothly. Please join me in recognizing John Deptuck as Knight of the Year.

Our next presentation is for Family of the Year. As you can see one family is here tonight in great numbers and it gives me great pleasure to call them all forward. Would Garry and Kathy Meier and their family please come forward to be recognized. Probably the most demanding position on our executive is the position of Financial Secretary. It is the Financial Secretary who keeps us on track, up to date in collecting membership dues and up to date in keeping track of our membership. With a membership of over 250 this is a very challenging task and Garry handles it with great efficiency. Our number of members who have not paid their dues is the lowest it has been in many years. This is due to Garry’s diligent manner in collecting these dues. A major area that Garry took on two years ago was in taking on the task of Chairing the Celebrity Dinner, and what a job he did. Organizing a dozen knights to work together for one cause was not an easy thing to do and Garry has done a great job of it as the results speak for themselves. Standing at Garry’s side and doing probably as much work is his wife Kathy. She takes on the most challenging task with the celebrity dinner, that being in charge of the silent auction.

Garry and Kathy have been members of Holy Family Parish longer than most of us and have been regular contributors to the life of our parish. Their children were baptized here and received the sacraments of Reconciliation, Holy Eucharist and Confirmation here. Please help me in recognizing Garry and Kathy Maier and their family as our Knights of Columbus Family of the Year.