Knights of Columbus puts on pancake day

The Knights of Columbus will hold its annual pancake and sausage meal today at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Washington. Lunch was served today from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and supper will be served tonight from 4:30 to 7 p.m. The money raised at the event will go toward handicapped housing and to WCDC.

Former Grand Knight David Schantz said this is the Knights? single largest fundraiser of the year. The Knights have fish fries about every other week which raise money for a variety of charities such as Alzheimer?s and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The Knights raise money for three to four college scholarships each year.

Mark Langr, the current Grand Knight, said 70 to 80 people help with the pancake day either by cooking the food that day, serving it, cleaning up afterward or setting up the tables and chairs. The Knights are assisted by local groups such as the HJ Club from Riverside, the Washington County Pork Producers and the Boy Scouts.

?There is a lot of planning in the background,? he said. ?There are some people like Dave Schantz who put in 20 hours.?

Schantz said the Knights of Columbus softball team cleans everything at the end of the day.

?When we get done cooking, we leave and the softball guys go through there like a white tornado,? he said.

Langr said the Knights hope to serve about 1,000 meals today, about one-third of which will be at lunch. Before the Knights opened their doors to the general public at 11 a.m., they invited special needs children and adults to go through the line at 10:30 a.m.

The Knights support youth baseball teams and their softball team by paying their entry fees to tournaments. The group contributes to the Special Olympics. Schantz said all Knights are practicing Catholics and one of the things they do is support people entering the priesthood. He said the club in Washington draws Catholics from surrounding towns such as Brighton, Keota, Pleasant Plain, Riverside, Wellman and Ainsworth.

Schantz said the pancake day began as an effort to provide housing for the handicapped. The Knights started ?Handicapped Housing,? a corporation that provides homes specially built for the handicapped. Schantz said the Knights wanted to expand the number of people who benefited from the pancake day and later included WCDC as a beneficiary.

Duane Redlinger, who has been a member of the Knights of Columbus since 1949, said the group started to raise money for Handicapped Housing in 1983. The Knights raised enough money to purchase homes for the handicapped, and now own two houses in town. Three people live in each house and they are supervised by Systems Unlimited.

Redlinger said the Knights were also instrumental in promoting WCDC. He said that special needs children received help while they were in school, but there weren?t any services to assist them once they graduated.

?We wanted to make something they could go to work at,? he said. ?WCDC takes care of disabled people and provides jobs for them. We went around the county and raised money. I spoke at a lot of organizations to let them know what WCDC was about. We weren?t only asking them for money but also educating them about what the development center was going to be for.?

WCDC moved into its current building on Fifth Street in 1979.

The Knights raised about $4,200 at last year?s pancake day, which they split evenly between WCDC and Handicapped Housing. Schantz said that was down slightly from what it had been in prior years when it was usually between $4,500 and $5,000.