United Way honors two Catholic groups

Friday, May. 16, 2014

OGDEN — Saint James the Just Parish in Ogden and the Knights of Columbus of Northern Utah were among nine honorees at the United Way of Northern Utah’s 2014 Bravo Night May 7. 

Bravo Night is United Way’s chance to thank community leaders for their efforts to make northern Utah a “fantastic place to live and work,” said Jan Zogmaister, chairperson of the United Way of Northern Utah Board, in her welcome.  

“We work with 61 agencies to help those who need special help in our community,” said Bob Hunter, United Way of Northern Utah president and CEO. “We are proud to be an umbrella agency that works with your corporation to help raise money so that it can prosper to do what it needs to do.”

Working together to make collective contributions is what the organizations being honored did “to make the community such a great place,” said Jeff Rawlings, United Way past board chairman, who introduced the honorees. 

Saint James the Just representatives Crislee Moreno and Liz Atkins accepted the Outstanding Volunteer of the Year Award for Mary Kay Nordhill, the parish secretary, who could not attend.

The parish was recognized for tackling a 2013 Christmas Giving Tree project in conjunction with United Way. 

“The backbone of the donated gifts and support came from the dedicated members of St. James Parish,” who assembled Christmas tree ornaments that corresponded with more than 500 gifts for the low-income families in the community, said Rawlings.

Nordhill wrote Christmas card labels for each item from a list for the families; the labels were placed on the Christmas tree, said Moreno. “We had the Girl and Boy Scouts help replenish the tree several times and all of the gifts were filled. We delivered more than seven van loads to United Way, and they were amazed at how many gifts we had accumulated.” 

After the award was presented to the parish, Rawlings called Robert Masse, Jr., Utah Knights of Columbus State Deputy, and Knights representatives from Saint Thomas Aquinas Parish, Logan; Saint Henry Parish, Brigham City; Saint James, Saint Joseph and Holy Family parishes in Ogden; and Saint Rose of Lima Parish in Layton to the podium to receive the 2014 President’s Award. 

The Knights’ councils in northern Utah received the award “for their incredible grassroots contributions in the community of northern Utah,” said Rawlings. “In 2013, the Knights provided nearly 500 brand-new coats for kids in need, generous donations to assist with the Catholic Community Services backpack school supplies drive and spearheaded food drives for local parishes to provide thousands of pounds of food for CCS’ Joyce Hansen Hall Northern Utah Food Bank, volunteered for the past two years for the Breakfast with Santa and they were involved with organizations such as Your Community Connection in Ogden, the American Red Cross and the Special Olympics.”

The CEO of the American Red Cross sent Masse a letter stating that without the Knights of Columbus’ support and volunteering “our blood drive would not happen,” Masse said. “They don’t have the manpower to do what we did for them.”

Collecting coats, raising funds to buy the coats and collecting food all take manpower that the Knights of Columbus are able to provide, Masse said. “As the Knights of Columbus in northern Utah keep growing, more will be given out. It’s a good partnership with United Way and with CCS,” he said. 

Catholic Community Services identifies the families whose children receive the coats, and organizes the coat distribution, said Joe Hudak, incoming District Deputy from Knights of Columbus District 9. “The same thing is done at CCS in Salt Lake. Sometimes the kids come just wrapped in a blanket and … [after getting a coat] the smiles on their faces are incredible.”