We are men who lead, serve, protect and defend, whether we are giving out Coats for Kids, donating wheelchairs, lending a helping hand in disaster relief efforts, supporting local pregnancy centers or providing top-quality financial products.
Here’s an example of what family means to Allen and Linda Reitmeier. Every other December, they rent a house where their family can spend a week “eating together, praying together, playing games.” When the grandchildren who are in college can make it, that means a party of 22. (Allen, Linda, four children scattered from West Texas to Maryland and their spouses plus a dozen grands.) This is all a result of an evening in the summer of 1965 in the small Minnesota town of Richmond when 19-year-old Allen and 16-year-old Linda met at a dance hall called the Olde Coliseum (still open for special events). They were married four years later. The Reitmeiers have been tremendously involved in Holy Spirit life for decades. Allen retired in 1999 and said joining the Knights in autumn 2007 allowed him to find “a purpose, an aim, that I could latch on to.” He’d long sought to start a volunteer service for helping in a community wherever he lived. That came to fruition with Council 8157 when his Knight Hands tackled its first job in May 2010. The tally is now more than 600 – and, of course, counting – including a recent mission replacing a woman’s refrigerator that had been out for six months. That left the woman in tears. “Those are the kinds of stories that keep me cooking on this,” he said. We’ve also long recognized him for overseeing our Valley Ridge baseball concessions operation for most of the past 17 years as well as significant involvement in the council website and quarterly newsletter. Allen and Linda volunteer doing Meals on Wheels each week. Linda helps with the parish homebound ministry and has often filled in for Holy Spirit staffers through the years. And is adored at those Christmas gatherings – and year ‘round. “She is so kind and thoughtful,” he said. “They think she’s the greatest mom ever. And they love Grandma.”
