As the holiday season is upon us, I would like to reflect on how this fraternal year has been going for Council 8074. We recently collected 401 turkeys on our annual turkey drive for St. Vincent de Paul and the Charlotte Care Center; this effort will serve to help many in our community. The $4,000 raffle ticket sales will continue in December, February, and March as well as future Tootsie Roll sales campaigns after the holidays. Our third Knights breakfast will be December 21 and the final one on January 18. The pork chop dinner in October went very well; we thank our wonderful parishioners and community for supporting these events through the year.

The socials we had in August at the Winesett House downtown and in October at Visani’s in Port Charlotte were well received as we hope to continue having different types of these events. At the July general meeting, council members voted on locations where they wanted to have socials this year and we are looking to continue scheduling them at some of those highly voted locations. We recently had a barbecue at the Crossroads Hope Academy Davidson Campus for the boys which was a great event for the 12 Council 8074 brothers who helped out as well as the 21 boys who participated. The mentorship program with Crossroads is being implemented throughout the fraternal year.

One of my primary goals this year is to increase faith related activities in the council. We now say the rosary before all of our monthly general meetings. Our Chaplain Father Jerry is working to coordinate a retreat in May for the council at the retreat center in Venice, Florida. I am working with Rita Sheridan after the holidays to implement a monthly prayer group at the parish center; there will be more information on this later on. The fraternal year is going by fast and we continue to work on increasing our membership. I encourage all of you to seek out more members for our council as we are now in prime season months with an increased number of potential candidates in the area now.

Merry Christmas to all of you this holiday season!

GK Brian Greathouse
Vivat Jesus!

Brother Knights from Council 8074 volunteered at the Venice Diocese Youth Rally held at the Charlotte Harbor Event and Conference Center in Punta Gorda on September 15. Nearly 2,000 youths from across the Diocese attended, making it the largest event the Diocese hosts each year. The rally featured Catholic trivia, a bilingual Rosary, and vendors promoting vocations.

A Eucharistic procession through the crowd was followed by Adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist and Benediction, with the Holy Mass concluding the day. Many young people also received the sacrament of reconciliation. Bishop Frank Dewane encouraged participants to stand confidently as men and women of God and to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit as they respond to His call.

Written by Brian Greathouse & Daniel Constance

In our previous report, we emphasized the importance of influenza vaccination. Because viruses mutate unpredictably, vaccines are updated yearly to include prevailing strains of Influenza A and Influenza B. A new H3N2 strain has emerged, differing from this year’s influenza A vaccine strain and causing severe illness in older adults in Europe and Asia.

Despite this mutation, vaccination remains strongly recommended, as even a partial match can reduce illness severity and complications.

Written by Elvin M. Mendez, M.D.