NE Minnesota KC’s donate to Second Harvest

MN KC Blog * Written by Greg van der Hagen

The St. Joseph’s Knights of Columbus at Holy Family Parish in West Duluth Council officers, (Fritz Wrazidlo, Grand Knight, Andy Brunette, Financial Secretary, Frank Gerard, Treasurer, Mike Reckinger, Secretary along with Paul Sever, KofC District Deputy and Father Ryan Moravitz – Holy Family and St. Lawrence Cluster) while not being able to meet with our membership since March due to the current COVID situation, decided that we would make a general donation to Second Harvest to show and demonstrate our support for their organization and outreach. Knowing that they distribute to over 180 outlets and serve over 44,000 people in the Northland, we felt that a we could help out in some small way.

After some brief discussion, the aspect of donating became our council internally to our members. We challenged ourselves individually as well to add to the council amount. This then morphed into a Northland challenge to other Knights of Columbus councils, not only in the Duluth District but with our region! Well we got responses from eight Duluth councils as well as councils from Ely, Hibbing, and Virginia/Mountain Iron as well as some individual donations from their members as well! What started out as a modest donation idea from our council, it grew to $8,000 overall!

While we realize that this wasn’t a manpower making of PPE or a face-to-face interaction, it certainly is in support of those that in a serious time of need; not only the recipients of the Second Harvest outreach but also in support of Second Harvest themselves. Since one of the founding principles of the Knights is Service to Community, we felt that this was a great opportunity to walk the talk.

Knights Councils that generously donated are as follows:

St. Lawrence – Duluth (#6783)
Our Lady of the Rosary-Cathedral/St. Mary Star of the Sea – Duluth (#15761)
St. Benedict – Duluth (#8337)
St. Anthony-Ely (#3238)
Holy Spirit-Virginia/Mt. Iron (#1640)
St. Anthony-Hibbing (#1649)
St. John/St. Joseph-Duluth (#447)
St. Raphael-Duluth (#6791)
St. Joseph Holy Family Parish – Duluth (#8268)
St. James Western Council – Duluth (#5142)
St. Michael – Duluth (#5318)
McGolrick 4th Degree – Duluth (#531)