Zachary Samples was a third-year seminarian for the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, in 2019 when his mother died suddenly in a traffic collision. In the time of intense grief that followed, the care packages he received every month in the mail from Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Council 11582 carried new weight. Council 11582 in Mount Zion, Illinois, had been supporting Samples through the Order’s Refund Support Vocations Program for several years, giving him $750 annually and regularly mailing him treats, small gifts and cards.
“The monthly care packages they sent were always appreciated, but to feel the love of my brother Knights during that season of my life was especially important,” said Father Samples. “I would get those packages and smile during a time period when it was pretty difficult to smile.”
Knights of Columbus councils have been supporting seminarians like Samples — as well as men and women discerning religious life — through the Refund Support Vocations Program since 1981. Ordained in 2022, Father Samples can attest that the program involves more than just financial aid. Spiritual and moral support are essential to the program and take different forms — from praying for beneficiaries before council meetings to sending them letters or cards expressing encouragement.
As for financial support, the program offers councils and assemblies in the U.S. and Canada a $100 refund for every $500 they donate directly to a seminarian or religious postulant or novice, up to a limit of $2,000 per individual. Recipients can use the grants for books, transportation or personal needs. Over the years, these RSVP donations have added up. As of October, Knights have contributed over $100 million to more than 125,000 men and women pursuing their vocations to the priesthood or religious life.
Currently, more than 3,700 individuals are receiving financial assistance from 2,600 K of C units through the program. Below are four examples of how councils in the U.S. and Canada are making a difference in the lives of the seminarians and postulants, and through them, in the life of the Church itself.
‘THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH’
Holy Trinity Council 17034 in Spruce Grove, Alberta, near Edmonton, has participated in RSVP since the council came into existence, the product of two councils merging 10 years ago.
“We’re called as Knights to support our clergy and to be steadfast in that support,” said Grand Knight Brad Medernach, who estimates that Holy Trinity Council has donated $20,000 through RSVP over the past decade.
One year, the council was supporting three seminarians from the local community at the same time.
“In our parish, we quite often have one or more young men who are discerning a vocation to the priesthood,” explained Medernach. “In supporting any young man who thinks he might be called, we want to do everything we can to let him know we stand with him. We’re in support of him financially, and we’re going to support him with our prayers and our fraternity. And I think our members really enjoy seeing the young man progress in his education and formation, God willing, to ordination.”
The council frequently invites seminarians to events at Holy Trinity Church, Medernach added, to “make sure that they know they have a whole host of brother Knights who are thinking of them.”
One such seminarian is Jake Mullin, who was ordained a priest in June. His father, Shane Mullin, spearheaded the council’s RSVP support in the beginning and recently entered formation for the permanent diaconate.
The idea of becoming a priest kept coming back to Father Mullin as he was growing up. He was at a crossroads in life when his father encouraged him to enter seminary. He was glad he did.
“Over the course of my seminary journey, I realized just how much joy and how much fulfillment I get out of helping people, being with them and all aspects of their lives, of being able to minister to them and journey alongside them,” said Father Mullin, who currently serves at St. Theresa Parish in Edmonton, where he is a member of St. Peter Council 7070.
“For my eight years of formation, I think the Knights’ support was really helpful,” he said. “And then, of course, they’re praying for me as well, which you can’t put a value on. So I do my best whenever I’m back in Spruce Grove to be with them and thank them. They were involved the whole way through.”
A BEACON OF JOY
In late 2013, Kenneth Hulewicz, then chancellor of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Council 7444 in Milford, Michigan, learned through his wife, Millie, about a vibrant religious community, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, in nearby Ann Arbor.
“You know, our council should be involved with religious support of some kind,” Hulewicz recalled telling a brother Knight, Paul Castiglione. “That should be one of our core values.”
In discussion and a vote at a subsequent meeting, the council wholeheartedly agreed. Since then, Council 7444 has raised some $70,000 in RSVP support through concerts, fish fries and other events for more than 20 Dominican Sisters of Mary and about a dozen seminarians.
Grand Knight Steven Battle said the council confers with the congregation’s leadership, who identify specific sisters who could use the support. Each recipient generally receives $500.
One beneficiary is Sister Maria Lourdes, who in 2021 took her name from the renowned shrine in France where she had received confirmation of a call to religious life. As a student at St. Mary’s High School in her native Phoenix, she was inspired to follow the example of some of her teachers, who were Dominicans from Ann Arbor.
“It was my first exposure to religious life and young religious who were on fire with their faith,” said Sister Maria Lourdes. “They loved the Lord enough to give their whole life to him and in service of the Church. They have something that the world doesn’t have — they’ve got this joy. I was really struck by that.”
She entered the order in the fall of 2020 and now, as part of her formation, is studying elementary education at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.
For the last three years, Sister Maria Lourdes has received grants from the council totaling $1,500, which has helped with education as well as medical expenses.
“I had some exposure to the Knights when I lived in Phoenix, and I just was always struck by their care and service for the local Church and community,” she said, adding that the RSVP support demonstrates her benefactors’ “heart for serving the Church.”
The feeling is certainly mutual.
“We think it’s essential to support these sisters, and it’s really become a great relationship over the years,” said Battle. “At least once during our Lenten fish fry season, we invite some of them to come over and have dinner with us. They will sing songs, and people from the parish want to come and see them and hear their stories.”
Hulewicz couldn’t agree more: “To have such a joyful group share an evening with us is really rewarding. They’re a beacon to all the parishioners.”
BLESSINGS MULTIPLY
Col. Walter Parsons Council 3205 in College Station, Texas, was among the first K of C units to participate in RSVP. Since 1981, the council has supported 30 seminarians with more than $50,000 in grants. In recent years, the council has typically supported three to five seminarians per year, and this year sponsored a religious sister for the first time.
“Usually, the grant is in the form of a $1,000 check tucked into a Christmas card sent out in late November or early December,” said Grand Knight Darrell Perkins. “It’s meant to facilitate a home visit at Christmastime.”
Most of the funds are raised during the council’s chili sale over Super Bowl weekend. Volunteers prepare 250-300 quarts of spicy chili and sell them for $10 each after Masses at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in College Station. In addition, a couple of parishioners send the council $500 to $1,000 each year specifically for RSVP.
Occasionally, recipients are seminarians with family connections to the parish. One such recipient is Father Thomas Swierc, who grew up in the parish and whose father, also named Thomas, has been a member of Council 3205 for more than 30 years.
Ordained in 2023 for the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Father Swierc attributes his vocation in large part to spending time in Eucharistic adoration, a practice that his parents introduced him to at a young age.
The RSVP grants were “an extreme blessing,” Father Swierc affirmed, since the monthly stipend of $135 he received at St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston didn’t go far.
“At the time, I was still driving my old pickup truck, which liked gasoline, and that made it a little hard on the wallet to make the three-hour trip one way to see Mom and Dad,” he said with a laugh.
Father Swierc’s dad, who goes by Tommy, pointed out that seminarians are not allowed to take a job because they’re supposed to dedicate themselves to their studies.
“They wouldn’t have the time to keep a job,” he explained, “so the council’s donation helped quite a bit.”
Grand Knight Perkins noted that when a council-supported seminarian becomes a priest, “we try to get as many people to go to the ordination Mass as we can, and we’ll present him with another $1,000 check so he can purchase vestments or whatever he chooses.”
In addition to praying for their RSVP recipients at the end of council meetings, Council 3205 sends them cards multiple times a year and organizes a monthly Holy Hour for vocations.
OUR FUTURE PRIESTS
For Father Daniel Sessions, the financial support he received from brother Knights in Prince of Peace Council 11537 in Hoover, Alabama, was important. But he also received something that he cannot quantify.
Prince of Peace began participating in RSVP just four years ago, when Sessions was a student at the North American College in Rome, preparing for the priesthood for the Diocese of Birmingham. The council asked him if he might be willing to speak via Zoom with students in the parish school about his life as a seminarian.
“Having that connection to home and a personal connection with the students was nice,” said Father Sessions, who was ordained in 2023 and serves at Holy Spirit Parish in Huntsville. “It was a wonderful chance to share my story and the wonderful work that God has done in my life, the many blessings he has so generously bestowed on me.”
Past Grand Knight Don DeCesare recalled how enthusiastic the sixth, seventh and eighth graders were to speak with Sessions on each call.
“The students absolutely loved it,” he affirmed. “They asked him questions, and he would walk around, showing them pictures and his surroundings in Rome.”
For his part, Father Sessions said that he appreciated the Knights’ approach and priorities when they reached out to him about RSVP.
“The importance to them was connecting seminarians with school children,” he said. “The money aspect was almost secondary.”
Through its annual Pennies from Heaven campaign, initiated by DeCesare, the council has raised a whopping $130,000 for seminarians over the past four years, with the students at Prince of Peace School raising more than $3,500 every year. Each of the Diocese of Birmingham’s 18 seminarians has received $3,000 to help with their expenses, and the refunds from the Supreme Council are given to the seminarians too.
“Our seminarians are our future priests,” said DeCesare, who now serves as Alabama’s state vocations chairman. “Anything that we can do to help them is beneficial for our future.”