St. Anna’s Knights of Columbus Council receives Double Star Award

Celebrates 15-year Anniversary

St. Anna’s Catholic Church in Monroe has been a long-standing Parish in the community since 1951.

In June of 2001, Father Daniel Toof became the Pastor of St. Anna’s, which at that time, was a mission church in the Arch Diocese of Atlanta.

Before retiring this past June, in his 21 years at St. Anna’s, Father Toof led the parishioners in participating in community faith and charity programs and in 2022, St. Anna’s was named the Best Church in Walton County, Ga., by the readers of The Walton Tribune.

St. Anna’s has been blessed with both great leadership and parishioners who believe in supporting their church and their community. A key group within St Anna’s is their Knights of Columbus Council 14425. The council was awarded its Charter Membership in the Knights of Columbus in December 2007 and is part of an Order that includes approximately two million catholic men across 16,000 councils worldwide.

Collectively, the Knights of Columbus annually donate about seventy-six million hours of time supporting their parishes and local communities and raise approximately one hundred eighty million dollars in charitable contributions.

At St. Anna’s, in the past 15 months, the 109 Knights have donated more than 8,000 hours of time and contributed just under $15,000 to various programs and charities including support to St Anna’s, the Walton County Pregnancy Resource Center, the N.E. Georgia Homeless Veterans Center, FISH and their programs, KOC GA Charities, Seminarians and other programs as needed such as the critical humanitarian relief efforts in the Ukraine.

The work of this Council is reflected in the award of the Double Star Award for 2021-2022. The Star Council award is the highest honor that can be bestowed on a council by the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council and only four of the 115 Councils in the State of Georgia received this award in 2022. To receive this award, a council must achieve excellence in membership and insurance programs and document 16 programs of charitable giving, four programs in each of the following categories of faith, family, community, and life.

The Double Star Award was presented by Kevin York, Georgia State Knights of Columbus Treasurer, at a luncheon on Oct. 10 celebrating the Council 14425’s 15-year anniversary. The celebration included honoring all fallen Knights and their widows of the Council. This is the council’s second Double Star Award to accompany its four Star Awards during the 15-year history, said Bob Griffin, current Grand Knight of the Council.

“The Council has received many awards since Steve Landkamer and the original 32 members started our journey, but I’m extremely proud of the work the men of this Council have done this past year,” Griffin said. “For example, we are a key supporter of the Center of Hope and Walton County Pregnancy Resource Center and we’re blessed to have had Carol Fairman, the director of the Center of Hope, as our guest speaker for our anniversary luncheon.”

In recounting his pride in Council 14425’s achievements, Griffin emphasized that the Knights of Columbus is not a social club.

“We are a group of Catholic men who are bound together in unity, charity, and fraternity to express our belief in Jesus Christ, and to proclaim that belief by the way we support our parish, our widows and each other,” he said. “The Knights exist so that we might first strengthen our own faith and bring that faith to fruition in service of others.”