NEW HAVEN, Connecticut, JUNE 8, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The Knights of Columbus are reporting that last year’s charitable contributions broke all previous records, by some $1 million.
In 2009, donations from the organization totaled $151,105,867, $1 million more than the previous year.
The organization’s Supreme Council gave $34,627,530 of this total, and $116,477,971 was contributed by the state and local affiliates.
As well, the organization gave over 69 million hours of volunteer work to charitable causes, which was some 500,000 more than the previous year. About 228,000 of these hours were given to Habitat for Humanity programs.
Supreme Knight Carl Anderson reported these results of the Catholic fraternal organization’s annual survey in a presentation to its leaders at the international headquarters in New Haven.
He noted that the Knights of Columbus held over 413,000 blood donations last year.
Looking at the cumulative figures, Anderson stated that the organization has given more than $1.367 billion to charity over the past decade. In that time period, an estimated 640 million hours of volunteer service were given to charity.
The Knights of Columbus, founded by Father Michael McGivney in 1882, has some 1.8 million lay members worldwide working in North and Central America, the Philippines, Guam, the Caribbean islands, and Poland.
