The council has led monthly food drives for the Sterling Food Pantry of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington since March 2018. In 2025, 62,332 pounds of food were collected.

They do more than collect and deliver food donations. They partner with the Food Pantry and St. Theresa High School Youth Ministry to tailor requested food & toiletry categories to the pantry’s needs, and sort the donations by category and expiration date. This way, pantry volunteers & staff only need to move delivered donations to the appropriate shelves in the pantry, saving them several days’ worth of work.

Every month, the council takes 400 blue shopping bags provided by the food pantry, along with a list of needed toiletries, food items, and priority items. Fliers are generated with a donation list, instructions for cash donations, and branding for Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington’s St. Lucy Project, and attached to the bags.

Knights stage the bins at church entrances, redistribute bags as needed, and clean up after the final Mass. Knights and other volunteers carry shopping bags from church entrances to a parish meeting room and sort the donations by food/toiletry category, then by expiration date so the Food Pantry can distribute items near expiration first. Donations are then taken to the Food Pantry, and council members help pantry volunteers weigh donations and stock the shelves.

Each month, the Sterling Food Pantry distributes 33,000 pounds of food, providing 1,000 people with a week’s amount of food. Over the last two years, the council delivered about 4,800 pounds of food each month, over 14% of the pantry’s donations.

In addition, their Food Drive was highlighted in the January/February 2026 edition of Columbia magazine.

The goal of the “Missionaries to the Family” initiative is to foster a stronger family bond among young families through faith, formation, and community.

Missionaries to the Family is an offshoot of the ongoing “That Man is You” program, both of which are run by Council Knights. During the initiative, one of the Council’s brothers and his wife open their home once a month for two hours to host about twenty parish families, including children. The evening sessions begin with dinner, followed by prayer, the viewing of faith formation videos related to families, and then discussions. Childcare is provided for those children too young to participate.

The focus of the initiative includes married relationships and steps to increase spousal union, the Rosary, and how to include it in family and personal prayer time, and how to reflect upon the life of the Holy Family in their homes.

The Knight and his wife, leading the initiative, have received extensive training and mentorship from the “That Man is You” cadre. This training included several weekend sessions and retreats in the Midwest that have been funded by the family. In the future, the Council will include a line item in the budget to help defray the costs associated with the training, and is now ready to start a group focused on young families who do not yet have children. A second Council couple, inspired by the example of the current initiative leaders, has also begun training.

As a result of the Missionaries to the Family initiative, the Council has witnessed considerable spiritual and community growth in these families, which is visibly evident in their enthusiastic participation in Mass and in an increased degree of engagement among the participating parishioners.

Each month, this council holds a pancake breakfast to include brother knights, wives, significant others, family members, and parishioners to raise money for seminarians, VKCCI, KOVAR, March for Life, Habitat for Humanity, and the Mother of Mercy Clinic.

The original request came from Fr. Wagner with the idea that it would be a great way to restart the parish after COVID. The pancake breakfasts continued to help bring the parish together monthly.

At the pancake breakfast, the council serves waffles, scrambled eggs, hash brown, bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy, and various refreshments. The council charges friendly prices of $10 a person or $20 a Family.

The breakfast serves as a way for the council to actively promote other council events,
meet more parishioners, connect, share ideas, and help membership grow as well.

This Council holds an annual Casino Knight, a fundraiser for the Kathy Hannan Scholarship Fund. The fund provides support to families of limited financial means who wish to enroll their children in St Veronica Catholic School, serving as an adjunct to the Diocesan Tuition Assistance Program.

The program benefits those families wishing to obtain a faithful Catholic education for their children in our parish elementary and middle school, but cannot otherwise afford the tuition.

This program provides a fun-filled evening of no-risk gaming, food and drinks, raffles, and other entertainment for adult parishioners. The Council’s sponsorship of this event allowed them to raise $7,646 for the Kathy Hannan Scholarship Fund.

This Council adapted the “Leave No Neighbor Behind” Program and teamed with Army Community Services on Fort Belvoir, which had no funding, to help as many as 200 young military families struggling to make ends meet and pay bills. The Council raised funds, performing more than 240 service hours, and purchased $10,000 in Commissary Grocery Cards so Army Community Services on Fort Belvoir could provide cards to as many of these families as possible.

Army Community Services on Fort Belvoir reported that the cards reached 150 families before Thanksgiving and Christmas to help buy groceries so they could have a Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas. The Council intends to continue this effort to Leave No Military Family Behind as long as military service members are suffering and cannot provide adequate food for their families.

This Council took notice of the needs around them and provided food to the local chapter of Feeding America. This was in response to the increased need of families facing food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the Council continued its relationship with the Roanoke Area Ministries House to provide and serve lunch and arrange to have the volunteers and meals necessary for feeding the homeless every third Saturday. Further, food donations were given to Feeding Southwest Virginia and Roanoke Area Ministries.

This council provides a Family Breakfast on the 3rd Sunday of every month for 10 consecutive months, which requires 20-30 Brother Knights for each event that starts at 6:00 AM on Sunday and with clean-up is finished by 2:00 PM. Each breakfast event serves over 200 guests.

Not only do these events promote unity with council Brother Knights serving as cooks, servers, dishwashers, and helpers, but it also promotes family unity by providing a recurring event where families can enjoy breakfast with other Brother Knights and parishioners and their families.

This program helped to bring a real sense of belonging as a Catholic Community while enjoying fellowship and a meal, and best of all, 100% of profits went to KOVAR. The success of this program is measured in several ways, but the best is the outcome: unity, family, and $6,000 donated to KOVAR.

The Family Education Presentation Program was an opportunity to bring parishioners, Knights, families, and friends together as one family to share a meal together to learn about who St. Nicholas really was and to learn the true meaning of the Epiphany. The Program brought many different families together from different Masses to share in fraternity, while learning the meaning and history of the Epiphany Celebration, and to learn the true history behind St. Nicholas of Myra.

This program helped to bring a real sense of belonging as a Catholic Community while enjoying fellowship and a meal with each of the presentations. Everyone was able to share in their Catholic history during the Christmas season, which also helped to keep Christ in Christmas. The two presentations were entertaining, engaging, and educational and enjoyed by young and old alike.

During the Lenten Season, the council wanted to know what they could do to bring the parish closer together while increasing their spiritual journey. After discussion with the members and the parish, the council turned to one of their own, a brother Knight who is in training to become a Permanent Deacon, to lead the community in a prayerful seminar on how to pray the Liturgies of the Hours.

Before the event, there was a potluck dinner so that the community could get to know each other a little better. After the meal, a discussion followed on how the liturgies came to be and how to recite the prayers in a group or individual setting. While this single event
went over well with the community, the program is not over. Future follow-up training programs are being developed to encourage and help more people strengthen their daily prayer lives.

This is year three of Pope Francis’ Encyclical to Encounter the Joy of the Gospel, and the Knights of Columbus Building the Domestic Church Initiative. As a parish, the Council and parishioners came together through a Family Prayer Retreat. The mission was to get the parish family spiritually recharged by taking a day for retreat and prayer.

In partnership with their parish and their Pastor, this council decided to use the Knights of Columbus Family Prayer Program as the foundation for a parish-wide half-day retreat. Seven Knights spearheaded this event over six months with total assistance from 25 families and parishioners. The program began with a Fourth Degree Honor Guard who escorted the Legion of Mary, the Pastor, and the Deacon. It was a wonderful afternoon of prayer and fellowship followed by Mass and dinner.

This council partnered with St. Thomas Aquinas Regional School to organize a toy collection event during December. The program coincided with the council’s pancake breakfast, where toys and monetary donations were accepted. The toys and over one thousand dollars in cash collected during the campaign were given to the St. Vincent de Paul Society for distribution to the underprivileged children in the community. To their delight, children and their families received the toys during a photo shoot with Santa.

Did you know that 1,026,730 Virginia citizens are categorized as being ‘Food Insecure,’ which is 12.7% of Virginia’s population? This Council dug deeper into the statistics and learned that there are 16,950 “Food Insecure” people in their County and that 22% of the children in their Parish boundaries received free or subsidized breakfast or lunch.

This Council launched their “Blue Bag” Parish food drive program, increasing their average monthly food collections 6 fold –from 500lbs a month to almost 3,000lbs a month—or 35,000lbs of food last year.

A parishioner’s son was born with both mental and physical impairments that were severe enough to keep him from learning to speak or walk. Over the years, the parish and other families have offered their services to the family to help. The Knights have also helped with grants from VKCCI. This assistance has helped him grow, and even though he still needs help standing and walking, he cannot speak. With the cost of his continuing care skyrocketing and the family now blessed with a new baby, they lack the financial wherewithal to pay for the costs. This past November, the Council held a breakfast to raise money to help support the family. The breakfast raised over $4,000 in donated funds from those inside and outside the parish community. This money, combined with a grant from VKCCI, helped pay for his tuition at the Institute for the Achievement for Human Potential, as well as gave the family nearly $3,000 to help pay for related expenses, including travel and housing, while their son works with the therapists and doctors.

In September, 2012, members of this council, led by their Family Chairman, organized and conducted a Fall Harvest Food Drive at their parish, asking the parishioners for donations of food items and cash. The result was a pick-up truck loaded with 1,126 pounds of canned and packaged food, $1,350 in cash, and $100 in gift cards. The food, cash, and gift cards were delivered to the area Catholic Charities food depot for distribution to a number of local food pantries.

But the September 2012 effort was only a small part of this council’s Food for Families program. The larger, ongoing project began in 2011 with members of this council participating in planning meetings with Catholic Charities to set up the food depot to serve as a distribution point to food pantries in the six surrounding counties. The result of these planning meetings is the CHOW program, which stands for Christ House on Wheels. Since April of 2012, members of this council have contributed over 300 man-hours, using their
personal vehicles to drive more than 1,500 miles to deliver over 25,000 pounds of food. This council’s Food for Families effort has been recognized by a certificate of appreciation from Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington, and the council’s work has been recognized in the Arlington Catholic Herald.

This project was designed to provide a food box of pasta/rice, canned food, and other food items to up to 300 families in the Eastern Loudoun County area of Northern Virginia. In addition, each family was served a hot meal and provided with clothes, winter coats, shoes, and children’s books and other items. Planning for the event started in September and included numerous weeks of food collection after every Mass at St. Theresa Parish, as well as the collection of coats. Wegmans, Giant, Harris Teeter, and Panera were also generous in helping provide food items.

Days before the event, clothes and coats were sorted and grouped by age or size and placed on hangers. Food was stored in the Parish storage area and moved to the school cafeteria, where it was sorted and boxed into standard boxes to be sent home with the families. The night before the event, members of the Knights of Columbus and family members, along with other parish volunteers, assembled clothing racks, boxed food, and prepared the school cafeteria and gymnasium for the event. Vouchers had been pre-delivered to the various agencies that assisted the poor and homeless in Loudoun County. Each Voucher had the time that the family should arrive. On the day of the event, the families checked in, were given a floor plan of the delivery areas, a route through the process, and a list of what items and how many were available per individual in the family. The families received a hot meal prepared by parish members and served by volunteers, and then they were permitted to pick out clothes and coats for all family members. They ended up in the gymnasium, where they were each given a box of food that weighed about 10-15 lbs each.

There was so much prepared food left over that we started sending families home with trays of pasta and other items. Over 100 families took advantage of the event. Members of the Knights of Columbus were an integral part of the planning team, collection, logistics, set-up, and staffing for the actual event, along with family members. Some new Knights were recruited at the same time for our new Council. The event was considered successful for a 1st time event, and the smiles of the people taking home the bags of clothes, coats, and food told the complete story.

This year’s Family Activity winner conducted a program intended to emphasize the importance of the Family at its Council Christmas Party. The council chose to hold a Christmas Party like no other held before and made sure that every council member was invited. 75 Knights participated in the preparation, and more than 130 Knights attended with their families. Food, the medium of comfort and warmth, was plentiful and included a unique Chinese turkey recipe. Everyone was encouraged to contribute to the event by bringing their favorite side dishes. Traditional Christmas customs were made a part of the event, including a visit by Santa for the young and young at heart. Those in attendance shared not only the company of their own families, but also of their Knights’ family, replicating the relationship that all have as members of Christ’s church. This joyous event left everyone who attended with the feelings of Peace and Joy that are so much a part of the Christmas season.

This year’s Family Activity winner held its annual Father-Daughter Dance with 5 basic objectives in mind:

• Provide a safe environment within a Catholic venue where fathers and daughters could gather to enjoy a social outing
• Provide fathers and daughters with the tranquility and peace to bond and have a memorable experience
• Promote the meaning of the Knights of Columbus to the parish membership, especially to the fathers in attendance
• Demonstrate the strong working link between the Council and the Ladies Auxiliary
• Help raise funds to support the Council’s Youth Scholarship Program

Door prizes were distributed, and every daughter present received a rose and a bracelet hand-made by the Members of the Ladies Auxiliary

This year’s Family Activity winner was called into service when a Brother Knight’s father, living out of the state, unexpectedly passed away. When the Parish Priest refused to allow a proper Knight’s burial, the Brother Knight brought his father’s ashes to his Parish Priest for a proper Memorial Service after the regular 5:30 pm service. When the Mother turned and saw the silent crowd of Knights and their Families there in support, her expression made us all proud to be there for her and the family. Sometimes it’s the quiet things we do in life that make us so great.

This Council’s project provided support to families in need during the special seasons of Thanksgiving and Christmas. The “Unknown Family” project worked through the Council Chaplain. Two families at Thanksgiving and two families at Christmas were supported with cash and gift cards to make their holiday seasons a little better. 33 percent of the Council worked a total of 50 hours to raise more than $2,200.00, which supported the “Unknown Family” project.

This Council wished to show solidarity with the servicemen and servicewomen in the community and to advance the principle of patriotism by an activity that would bring the community and the Council together with those who are contributing so much to our nation.

Support for this event represented the most ambitious and largest single undertaking ever conducted by the Council. 68 Council members spent days of preparatory work, planning, and coordinating details culminating in the Family Day event for the 192nd Fighter Wing at Sandston for all our Armed Service members and their Families. They served more than 1100 members and Families of the Air National Guard. The Wing Commander publicly
expressed his heartfelt appreciation for all the work of the Council members and for their demonstration of support and thanks for the Air National Guard service to our Nation.

The Wedding Vow Renewal Ceremony brought 20 Couples with a combined total of 897 years of marriage together to renew their Vows at a special Mass. The joyous event was shared with over 150 relatives, friends, and well-wishers, using the light of their love to help illuminate an overcast day and bring the brilliance of Marriage to the conscience of the community. The grand conclusion was the cutting of the “wedding cake” by a couple married for 61 Years. The ceremony was covered by the local newspaper and recorded live by a local television station, and then aired it later on the evening news. Preparations began in mid 2005 with a Committee from the Council, Ladies Auxiliary, and the Parish all pulling together in harmony to make this event the success that it was.

This council started a ministry to assist people in need of a wheelchair ramp. The council
has involved all members of their family; the men build the ramps, the wives provide the
meals, so they can keep working through the day, and the kids chip in anywhere they are needed.

To date, they have constructed nine ramps at an estimated labor cost of $35,000.00.
The ramps have been built for council members, church members, and local families.

The council coordinated a “FamilyWeek Celebration” with programs within the council centered around the birthday of our Order’s founder, Fr. Michael J. McGivney. There was a family-style potluck dinner, which they provided the hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken- hot off the grill. After the dinner, a family-style Rosary was conducted. Immediately afterwards, the council Brothers retired to their normal business meeting as the families were active in a Family Bingo session.

A senior member of a council moved into a nearby assisted living facility. His health appeared to go downhill. It became apparent that he was receiving very many visitors. The Council set up a program for members to volunteer to visit or call him on a specific day each month. They even had volunteers to replace the regulars if the regulars were out of town. The program was successful. Their Chaplain, Fr. Julius, has responded with marked improvement.

An “old-fashioned” day of fishing and a family picnic

In keeping with the Knights of Columbus theme of August being family month, the council hosted a highly successful campout and train trip to Romney, West Virginia.

The event started with the Knights nd their families meeting at the Potomac Scenic Railroad in Romney, where they were treated to a spectacular three-hour narrated trip through a canyon and were able to see five bald eagles in their natural habitat. After the trip, the Knights canavanned to Yankee Island to camp overnight on the property of one of the members of the council. The evening included a barbecue dinner, followed by a nature hike and the traditional campfire singing. The next morning, before breaking camp, the families were treated to a wonderful breakfast. Over thirty council members, plus members of their families, participated.

This program provides a wonderful example of council family members making a long-term commitment to assist one of their own families. Transportation was provided for an elderly brother knight to visit his wife in a nursing home. More than 2,800 miles were driven during 70 trips between the Knight’s home and the nursing home during seven months.

This project enabled families residing in a homeless shelter to experience some of the joys of Christmas in a way that may otherwise not have been possible.