Hot Springs Village - Arkansas

Three successful product sales efforts and a New Year's Eve party conclude the fundraising activities for the 2011 calendar year.

Ham Sales - completing its sixth year, this activity promotes the sale of Petit Jean meat products for the holiday season, Thanksgiving through Christmas.  A $2,000 profit in 2009 was followed by $2,300 in 2010, and $2,750 in 2011.  Having co-chaired the activity with Mike Welsh in 2010, Bill Roe chaired it in 2011.  There were 23 "hamsters" involved, and they sold 272 individual products.  Those knights selling in double digits include: Ed Cudworth - 32; Ray Ambrozich - 31; Bill Welch - 24; Milt Spaniel and Mike Welsh - 23 each; Bill Roe - 19; Bill Hartnett - 16; Roger Bresnahan - 12; and, Larry Stein - 10.  

Needy families of the Alternate Learning Education (ALE) students and the Mountain Pine students were recipients of the gift cards.  Since the number of awards is projected before the sales were concluded, ALE was given $1,200 and Mountain Pine $800 with the remaining $750 given to Sacred Heart's participation in the Village Christmas Basket project. 

Keep Christ in Christmas Nativity Decals/Magnets -  started in 2009 with 400 sold, this activity was suspended for one year, and taken up again in 2011.  Bill Hatnett coordinated it for a second time and reported gross sales of $1,185 with $705 in net proceeds, after taking out the $480 cost of the decals.  Since the cost of the decals was covered this year, Bill is projecting an $800 profit in 2012.

Wisconsin Kraemer Cheese and Sausage Sales -  Ed Miller introduced this fundraiser in 2011 and was ably assisted by John Myers and Wayne Winters.  Mike Miller was very instrumental in helping to streamline the financial and ordering processes.  In a brief three weeks of sales, there was a profit of $733 which helped fund the new Coats for Kids project that provided 96 coats to needy students in four area schools - Jessieville, Fountain Lake, Mountain Pine, and St. John's.   Ed is continuing the project for 2+ weeks in Jamuary.

New Year's Eve Party - an annual dinner and dance that is always a big success was attended by 196 revelers this year.  Coordinated again by Ron Cuba and Ed Miller, there is a projected profit of $2,300. 

Council 10208 is deeply indebted to all of these knights and spouses for their selfless efforts in promoting fraternity and supporting charity.   Thanks also to everyone who bought the products and attended the events.

It should also be noted here that many knights and spouses were concurrently involved with Sacred Heart's Christmas Basket project (see the Photo Gallery for pictures and information). 

Five candidates from Council 10208 and one from Hot Springs Council 6419 were awarded 1st Degree status with their exemplification at 2:00PM on Sunday, December 11, at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church. 

The five local knights are Dan Alyward, Don Caple, Mike Garstecki, Mark Kurowski, and Diego Miceli.  Vance Arlotta is the new knight from Hot Springs.  

The Council's Exemplification Team did another excellent job in performaning the ceremonials.  The Team included Bill Patterson, Tom Yerina, Gerald Krawczynski, Bill Janser, Mike Frantz, Mike Kerwin, and Jack Widlowski.

There was an excellent turnout by brother knights to support their team and to welcome the new members.

Congratulations to Membership Director Ed Cudworth and his Recruitment Committee for meeting  the 2011-2012 membership goal so early in the fraternal year with 25 new members.

At the December 6 Council's membership meeting, Brother Ed Voss, a Vietnam era veteran, introduced two representatives from the Central Arkansas Veterans Health System (CAVHS) in Little Rock - Leotis Nichols and Nakia Williams.  Both individuals are members of a Care Management Team involved with Operation Endurance Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). 

The Team can assist vets with: 1) completing a onetime post-deployment health risk assessment; 2) helping with issues related to deployment injuries or illnesses; 3) helping navigate the VA system; 4) performing courtesy visits with OEF-OIF veterans who are hospitalized; and, 5) providing outreach activities to military units throughout Arkansas.

Leotis spoke about the many differences between the typical veteran from previous wars and the veterans from the current wars.  The VA's basic structure was designed for the older veterans, and it must adjust to meet the needs of the younger vets.  The older vets typically served during a time of the draft, no women in combat roles, and, for the most part, a single one-year tour assignment with few National Guard and reservists involved,  The younger vets want more responsive health services, have probably served multiple tours, have difficulty retaining a job because of those tours, and want evening and weekend hours for service due to jobs and families.

Nakia referenced the desire of the VA to use a more holistic approach to the needs of vets, including caregivers, spouses, and families.  There are attempts to aid the families in making connections with other agencies outside of the VA to help meet their needs.  Returning woman veterans also provide new challenges to the VA which has been used to providing services to men.  Nakia said that there now more Vietnam veterans seeking assistance, as they become more aware of their own needs, especially post-traumatic stress disorders.  She also emphasized that technology is being used to meet some of the vets' more common queries, including copies of a DD214 form, checking the status of a service request, verifying an appointment time, and ordering medications.

Leotis and Nakia can be reached at 501-257-5414 and 501-257-6706 respectively. 

The Knights of Columbus Supreme Council has sponsored a 'Coats for Kids' program since 2009 during which time over 40,000 coats have been given to the needy in the United States and Canada.  This fraternal year, the officers of Council 10208 decided to get involved and promote it as their primary program in the Youth category.  Program Director Jim Passe was assigned responsibility for its implementation.

The coats come from a Supreme supplier in cases of twelve with the same color and gender with a mix of sizes.  Each case is $195 and Supreme pays 50% of the shipping charges.  As an additional incentive for Councils to participate, those which purchase and distribute eight cases in a fraternal year will meet the Columbian/Star Council requirement for the Youth category. 

Working with Jim Passe were John Bodensteiner and Ed Keearns.  Given his frequent contacts with area school counselors on Village Outreach projects, Ed quickly identified three schools (Fountain Lake, Jessieville, and Mountain Pine) that would each distribute two cases of coats to their needy families.  John contacted the principal at St John's, who also wanted to participate.  The 96 coats have already been distributed to the four schools, just in time for the cold weather covering Central Arkansas.

Although discussed, but not approved, during the original budget discussions by the officers and directors last June, this project will be funded primarily by three new sources of income: 1) profit from the November Memorial Mass and Banquet coordinated by Dick Breckon; 2) the Wisconsin Cheese Sales project being promoted by Cheesehead Ed Miller; and, 3) 50% of a $1,000 Walmart community award recently obtained by grant writer Milt Spaniel.

This successful program is another fine example of how the local council is meeting its stated charitable objectives.