A mailing list for Knights of Columbus members from anywhere in the world.
The Knights of Columbus was founded on March 29, 1882 in New Haven, Connecticut in the basement of St. Mary's Catholic Church by Father Michael J. McGivney and several Catholic laymen. His particular concern was protecting the young families in his church. Most were immigrants. All too often, the father, faced with dangerous and unhealthy working conditions, would die young - leaving his widow and children destitute. The objective of its founder and its first members was to set up a lay organization that would implement a means to assure financial security for the families.
From that basement in New Haven, the Knights of Columbus has become the world's largest organization of Catholic men and their families.
Membership as of June 30, 2008, stood at 1,763,182 Knights. Together with their families, the Knights are nearly 6 million strong. In addition, from the first local council in New Haven, the Order has grown to more than 13,485 councils in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Panama, the Virgin Islands, Guatemala, Guam, Saipan and Poland.
The Knights of Columbus, at all levels of the organization, volunteered a record high 68.8 million hours of personal service to the Catholic Church, community projects and youth programs in 2008. Knights also reported raising and contributing $150.0 million to charitable efforts in 2008.
Rated AAA (Superior) by Standard Poor's and A++ (Superior) by A.M. Best Company - the two top ratings issued by these independent agencies - the insurance program is available to all members and their families in the United States and Canada. The total amount of insurance in force as of December 31, 2008 was $71 billion.
Additional information can be found on the Order's Web site.http://www.kofc.org or http://kofc.pbwiki.com/