Knights serve charity with breakfast

Intermountain Catholic

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Tamara Leake, executive director of the Pregnancy Care Center, gives information about her organization to Kaylene Sandall and her son during the fundraising breakfast at Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Layton, which was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus Council 6010.

LAYTON — Knights of Columbus Council 6010 at Saint Rose of Lima Parish in Layton has added a new item to the menu at their monthly fundraising breakfasts. In addition to raising money for activities that they sponsor, each quarter they now donate the proceeds from one breakfast to a community nonprofit.

"We wanted to expand beyond Saint Rose into the greater community," said Grand Knight Bill Smith, whose council sponsors a number of parish activities, including the annual Easter egg hunt and Sub for Santa.

The Knights have decided to donate to a different nonprofit each quarter. The selected organizations must reflect Catholic values. In February the $470 from the breakfast went to the Carmelite nuns at the monastery in Holladay. This quarter all proceeds from the April 10 breakfast went to the Pregnancy Care Center in Ogden, which offers counseling to help pregnant women find alternatives to abortion.

"Abortion is something that we are very strongly against," Smith said. "My wife and I attended the Pregnancy Care Center’s annual fundraiser at the Eccles Center and realized how much they really do need help."

Following Smith’s suggestion, his fellow Knights voted to donate the funds from this quarter’s breakfast to the center.

"Charity is part of the Knights of Columbus… so we’re giving to the Pregnancy Care Center because they’re in desperate need," said Patrick Gotti, the Knights Advocate, who also coordinates the kitchen activities at the breakfasts.

Last year, the Pregnancy Care Center reached more than 500 women, said Tamara Leake, the executive director. She sees a great need for the center’s service: in Utah in 2009 more than 3,000 women had abortions.

The center is a nonprofit that doesn’t receive government funding. "We are always looking for something to help out with paying the expenses that we have," Leake said.

In addition to offering counseling about alternatives to abortion, the center also has begun to provide classes to help women "after that initial decision about not having an abortion, helping to have the skills and supplies that they need to be able to parent effectively or to place the baby for adoption," Leake said.

Also, the Pregnancy Care Center hopes to open a second location in Layton.

"What we’re trying to do is to make it very convenient for young women to have an alternative that’s available to them, to come and talk about their situation," Leake said. "Those of us in the ministry recognize that abortion only compounds human suffering instead of alleviating it. So we want to have an easily accessible place where they can come and talk through the situation and get the information that they need, because young women make good decisions when they have good information. What often is the case that we see when we talk with them is that they don’t have the information that they need."

St. Rose of Lima Parish has had a long relationship with the center, Leake said – Knights and other parishioners have participated in the center’s annual Walk for Life, and the parish helps promote center activities. In addition, the parish’s Sewing Angels group donates baby items to the center, which then passes them on to needy clients, she said.

Monsignor Victor G. Bonnell, pastor of Saint Rose of Lima Parish, said he supports the Knights’ new effort because, like the Easter egg hunt, it brings in not only Catholics but others. "It helps the social outreach of the church," he said.