State Council News

SOS Texas Knights! UPDATE!

Posted Sep 08, 2011
by Mark


Today State Treasurer, Terry Simonton, General Agent Tom Supak, Executive Secretary Mike McLaughlin & Diocesan Deputy Bill Harris and his wife Layne traveled to Bastrop along with the many Knights from the Bastrop local council to help give assistance to the people who have been displaced or lost their homes in the fires.

Talking with several of the Knights families that were in need and giving them some assistance every one should know what a fantastic job the Bastrop Council including the wives and all the other volunteers should all be proud of their efforts!  They have served well over 1000 people since last weekend and everything was well organized.  The Texas National Guard, Red Cross and I believe Fema came today early in the afternoon and took over most of the needed man power that the Knights and other volunteers were doing.  From our perspective the only thing left to help with was in food preparation and that was being handled extremely well.  In closing I would like to thank ALL of the volunteers who have helped and will continue to help, they “HAVE THE TRUE PASSION TO SERVE”!  With the National Guard doing there part there really isn’t a need right now for manpower.  The need now is more monetary than anything and as stated earlier that can be accomplished through our Disaster Relief Fund.

Please make donations out to STATE
COUNCIL CHARITIES and mail it to;

STATE COUNCIL CHARITIES
6633 EAST HIGHWAY 290 STE. 204
AUSTIN, TX. 78723

WRITE IN THE MEMO SECTION OF YOUR DONATION “DISASTER RELIEF TEXAS FIRES”

SEPT 8, 2011—The fires have destroyed over 1300 homes including that of our District Deputy Lee Mobley and 3 other Knights. The fires are only 30% contained with no end in sight to containing them. Yesterday Diocesan Deputy Bill Harris visited with the Knights from Council 14943 at Ascension Catholic Church in Bastrop. They are managing the Parish Hall with about 100 people and collecting the goods and money donations from the community. The Council and the women of the Church are feeding these people and walk ups three meals a day. In addition to this they are furnishing man power to another Church to help them with food and food distribution. They are expecting one of the public schools to be closed as a shelter and 100 of those people be sent to that Catholic Church.

The Grand Knight told me that right now their needs are:

Man Power -They could use some relief if Councils in the area could send over some people, A few of the local Councils are sending people and some of the women’s group are bringing meals.

Supplies-They don’t need can goods or dry goods just now. They will need these in a few days when what they have runs out. HEB, Wal-Mart, The Austin Diocese and the Austin TV Stations have collected truck-loads of donations and are passing them out to individuals.

Please pray for rain. This would do more than anything else to end this devastation.

For those who would like to participate please send donations to State Council Charities with a memo Disaster Relief Texas Fires addressed to the State Office at;

State Council Charities
6633 East Highway 290 Suite 204
Austin, TX. 78723

We will be updating any other needs as we get the information.

Michael L. McLaughlin
Executive Secretary
6633 East Highway 290 Suite 204
Austin, TX. 78723-1157
O: (512) 442-1492
C: (972) 998-3225
FAX: (512) 326-1492
E-mail: (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)