Oct. 15, 2010
The CUA council of the Knights of Columbus earlier this month was honored by the national parent organization with its Youth Activity Award.
The CUA council, a Catholic fraternal group of 50 members, was feted on Oct. 1 at Knights of Columbus headquarters in New Haven, Conn. It was recognized for collecting $300 as well as a box full of school supplies and for mentoring students at the Hope Community Public Charter School in the nearby Brookland neighborhood.
"This was an effort completely thought of and initiated by our guys, our members. They thought of it and ran with it, successfully," said Chris Pierno, grand knight of the CUA chapter.
Pierno, a senior from Queens, N.Y., majoring in politics, said the key to the council's success has been the perseverance and ardor of its members. "We have a commitment to doing whatever we can to help, even if it may not seem like much at all," he said. "Every little bit helps, and we will continue to see what else we can do in the future to help out."
The Knights of Columbus enjoy a long history with CUA. In the early 1900s, the organization donated $500,000 to endow graduate studies fellowships at the university. More than a century later, it donated $8 million to renovate the former Keane Hall and transform it into McGivney Hall, the new home of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, a graduate school of theology affiliated with both CUA and the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.
This school year, Council 9542 has kept busy. It started a weekly praying of the Rosary on Thursday evenings in Caldwell Chapel. It plans to unload and assemble a truck full of wheelchairs and donate them to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C.