Members of the Knights of Columbus are preparing for the annual Campaign for People with Intellectual Disabilities – a fundraising effort that finds members selling Tootsie Rolls and taking donations to support assistance organizations.
Last year the campaign raised more than $7,900, which was donated to the Smeltzer Center, Snellgrove Center and the Etowah and Cherokee Training Centers.
This year’s including the Hokes Bluff and Gadsden City High school Student Government Associations, Goodyear retirees, Smeltzer, Snellgrove, Etowah Training Center, Cherokee Training Center and St. James parishioners and the Knights and their Ladies Auxiliary will be selling Tootsie Rolls and taking donations at the following locations:
Johnson’s on Walnut Street, in East Gadsden and in Attalla; Wal-Mart in Attalla; Cash Savers in Gadsden; Winn Dixie in Rainbow City; Piggly Wiggly in Hokes Bluff; the Hokes Bluff football game and the Gadsden City football game.
“Thank you for your donation,” Walt Dumanski of the Knights said. “It will help us continue this record of financial commitment and volunteer support.”
Dumanski said 100 percent of the money raised in this campaign will go directly to agencies and programs serving people with intellectual disabilities.
The Knights of Columbus has a history of well over a century of rendering assistance to others.
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 and Patriotism.
The Knights was 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. The history of the Order shows how the foresight of Father McGivney, whose cause for sainthood is being investigated by the Vatican, brought about what has become the world’s foremost Catholic fraternal benefit society.
The Order has helped families obtain economic security and stability through its life insurance, annuity and long-term care programs, and has contributed time and energy worldwide to service in communities.
The Knights of Columbus has grown from several members in one council to more than 14,000 councils and 1.8 million members throughout the United States, Canada, the Philippines, Mexico, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, Cuba, Guatemala Guam and Spain.