International Church Service Award

First Place

St. Joseph’s of Lino Lakes (Minn.)
Council 9905

Knights of Columbus are known everywhere as men you can count on to roll up their sleeves when there’s a worthy project that needs doing.

This year’s winner in the Church category is St. Joseph’s of Lino Lakes (Minn.) Council 9905.

It is a council that lives up to that reputation in its little community about 20 miles north of St. Paul. In the 1960s, St. Joseph’s parish built a new, larger church, and the old one, which had been built in 1897, fell into disrepair during four decades of neglect.

In 2004, Knights of Council 9905 established a “Save Old St. Joe’s Committee,” and began to lay plans for restoration of the old church, but initial estimates put the cost at more than $830,000.

Soon an alternate plan, relying on volunteer labor and donated materials, took shape. Council leaders organized a wide variety of projects, including gutting and replacing interior drywall, putting up a new roof, refurbishing the pews, restoring the stained glass windows, rebuilding window frames, restoring Stations of the Cross, and installing plumbing in the building for the very first time.

The project was completed for less than $150,000, and was the subject of many positive stories in the news media, including the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

More than 40 Knights, wives, friends, parishioners and community volunteers joined together in the restoration project for more than three and a half years. Six of the volunteers were inspired to join the Knights of Columbus. The first official celebration in the restored church was a wedding anniversary and renewal of vows by a Knight and his wife who had been married there 50 years earlier. Today, Old St. Joe’s has come back to life, and is being used for small weddings, daily Mass, Eucharistic Adoration and as a teaching tool in RCIA classes.

Convention delegates welcomed State Deputy Ricardo Acevedo and his wife, Catherine, Past State Deputy Eugene Hippe and his wife, Gloria, and St. Joseph’s of Lino Lakes Council 9905 Grand Knight and Mrs. Terry G. Meyer, as they received the Supreme Council’s 2009 Church Activity Award.