The Garrettsville Knights of Columbus Council #11801 recently made a sizeable donation to the Nelson Garrettsville Community Cupboard, a local food pantry in Portage County, donating $500 plus 1,000 pounds of food. The donation was announced at the NGCC Board meeting on Feb. 17.
“This is what the Knights are,” Grand Knight Greg Leopold told The Weekly Villager on Feb. 27. “We are in the community to give back to the community. It is not just benefitting ourselves; we benefit the community in a lot of different ways.”
The $500 donated to the NGCC was from money raised by the Knights and St. Ambrose Parish Church from the Breakfast with Santa fundraiser on Dec. 14 and donations from the Knights’ council members.
Leopold lauded the Knights’ council members for their financial contributions to assist the Knights’ efforts in raising enough money for $500 to be donated to the NGCC.
Additionally, the Knights’ donation of 1,000 pounds of food was food that the Knights collected from their monthly food drives in 2025 plus a Christmas holiday food drive. The Knights collected food daily and also had council members donate food.
“Every day you add another item to the box and when you collect it, the box was filled by our members,” noted Leopold. “When we got enough in the lobby of the church, they came over and picked it up so they could distribute it to the local community.”
According to Leopold, the Knights’ most recent donation to the NGCC was a result of a national campaign sponsored by the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council in New Haven, CT, as each chapter that donated at least $500 to a local food pantry would receive a payment of $100 from the Supreme Council along with another $100 payment for donating 1,000 pounds of food.
“I would say a good-sized box is probably 30 or 40 boxes of food because as you imagine, you take a couple of things of canned goods and when you start piling those, instant mashed potatoes and cereal and things like that, it fills quite a large box and we probably had close to 20 or 30 of those large boxes of food that were collected over the year,” said Leopold.
Leopold noted that the local community showed great generosity during the course of the Knights’ 2025 food drives, and the 1,000 pounds of food reflected how strongly the community supported the NGCC.
“The giving tree is up in the church, and they set it up for two or three weeks and most of the three weeks,” he said. “Garrettsville Community is amazing with giving help to others, I am very happy with that community. They are very giving.”
Leopold added that the Knights’ staunch support of the NGCC is indicative of the organization’s original purpose when it was founded in 1882.
“One of our founding principles is charity and if you go back to it, the reason that the Knights of Columbus was founded by Father McGivney was that the men were dying and the women were not being taken care of because in the early days of our country, there just wasn’t the life insurance and government saving programs that we have now,” he said. “That is one of the principles and that is what a Knight is supposed to do, be charitable to others.”
Leopold said that the Knights’ big donation to the NGCC is just the beginning of what will be a series of charitable events for the organization, including an Easter egg hunt on March 28.
“What we do is fill easter eggs with candy and tickets for presents and we distribute the eggs on the church grounds, and we have a pancake breakfast,” he added. “It is a cash donation to the youth group at the church, but you don’t have to buy a pancake breakfast to participate in the Easter egg hunt.”
