Knight Hands Serves DFW Regnum Christi

08
Nov

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img_7429In our most ambitious project to date, Knight Hands helped the Consecrated Women of DFW Regnum Christi with various home maintenance projects inside and outside of their residence near Dallas Love Field Airport. An elegant but aging large 1970’s-style mansion occupying a couple of acres of land is home to fourteen resident women who lead a Consecrated life in Regnum Christi (Kingdom of Christ). As a Catholic Movement, Regnum Christi has five great loves: Christ, the Church, the Pope, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and souls. For the Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi, “…Charity is the interior force that shapes our promises of poverty, chastity and obedience in service to Christ and to others.”

The women are responsible for the upkeep of the donated property but with their limited resources they must often rely upon the help and generosity of the occasional volunteers like our own brother Knight Jose Montoya and other community friends, in order to get by as best they can. But as the projects mounted up, Jose brought it to Knight Hands director Allen Reitmeier and it wasn’t long before our Council 8157 approved it.

img_7398So bright and early on the morning of Saturday November 5th the Knights gathered at Allen Reitmeier’s garage to review their assignments over coffee and breakfast burritos. A retired mobile home builder who ran crews of hundreds of craftsmen with installations nationwide, Allen truly knows the value of a good breakfast before a hard day’s work. His many years of experience and organizational skills contributed to all the preparations being done way ahead of time, by Allen and Jose, who had purchased all the materials and supplies including the new appliances – 2 new cooktops and dishwasher, at the local home center.  The project was planned to be completed in one day starting at 8:30 AM and ending about 4 PM. When the caravan of pickup trucks and one van arrived at the job site 20 minutes later, the Knights quickly set about their tasks in teams of two or more.

Here are the repair projects the Knights completed:

  • img_7423Rod Kinard and Dan Murphy took on the main building’s second story balcony repairs, which included floor and railing repairs as well as a fresh coat of paint. Scaffolding had to be assembled first for them to accomplish this.
  • David Dybala and Art Rodriguez installed new door sweeps and thresholds; adjusted front door. David checked out the sprinkler system; painted balcony.
  • Jose Montoya and Arthur Migala installed the two new cook tops, and caulked the shower.
  • Ray Rivera and Jack Ramsden installed a new dishwasher, installed shears on the chapel doors and repaired the chapel balcony.
  • img_7407Cris Valdez patched interior ceiling hole and painted kitchen cabinet doors.
  • Hector Rubio wired the two new cooktops and with Art Rodriguez installed new light ballasts in the cottage.
  • John Espree and Jorge Ruiz built custom window screens for three large windows on the main building, cleaned the rear second story wall of the building and swept the leaves off the low pitch patio roof. They repaired the woodpecker holes on the wood shingle siding of the two-story chapel.

Knight Hands Director Allen Reitmeier summarized the project this way: “Knight Hands worked about 95 hours to complete this project. The total cost of materials was $1,716.80 – way below our original estimate of $2,020.00. Most of those savings were because we happened to catch a sale at Home Depot on appliances.”

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As a gesture of gratitude, the Consecrated Women prepared a delightful meal of burgers and hot dogs with all the trimmings for the Knights. This midday break gave us the opportunity to get to know these impressive women a little bit as they introduced themselves to our group and we to them. We want to thank the Consecrated Women for answering Christ’s call of “Come and follow me” and for choosing to live their spiritual life in service of others. The women present at the residence were:

  • img_7420Mary Schwarz, Director
  • Alexandra Hochhaus
  • Mary Nuxoll
  • Taniele Tucker
  • Adrienne Rolwes
  • Jill Preisack
  • Lucia Ochoa
  • Tammy Grady
  • Lisa Small

God bless them.