Knights of Columbus
Our Lady of Peace Council 4424
The Knights of Council 4424
Who We Are
If you are looking for general information about the Knights of Columbus the best current resource is the organization’s home page [KofC.org]. If you were to look at this resource you would find out that the “KofC” is made up of a governing body with Chapters not only across the United States but several other countries as well. But, the core of the organization is the Councils that belong to each Chapter. These Councils reside in communities all over the western world. This page tells you a little about Council 4424 located in Huber Heights, Ohio. Each Council has a name. Many of these invoke a patron saint, while some others are named in memory of individuals or founders. Council 4424’s name is “Our Lady of Peace” and our full name is: Our Lady of Peace Council 4424. Our adopted patron is the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. This Council was founded in July 1974 and was originally made up of men from five Catholic churches located in what is/was known as “Old North Dayton”. At the time, one of those churches, Saint Peter Church, was not even built yet. Its members celebrated Mass in the cafeteria of Saint Peter Grade School. The center of gravity for the newly formed Council was Our Lady of the Rosary Church, which also had a co-located grade school. The other three churches were: Holy Family, Holy Trinity and Saint Adalbert. In the intervening years, Saint Peter Church was built and, due to employment changes across the greater Dayton metro area, it gradually became the new center of gravity for the Catholic community in the Old North Dayton area. Saint Adalbert Church was subsequently closed and attendance at Holy Family and Holy Trinity stabilized at smaller numbers. Our Lady of the Rosary Church and school continued (and continues) to be a major center of Faith activity but, when Council 4424 was created, it took up residence in a small “Hall” located on Powell Road in Huber Heights. A factor in the development and location of the Council is the influx of personnel from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Over the years, this has supplied the Council with a lot of great men with a lot of experience in getting involved with local organizations. And, while some have come and gone, others have stayed on. It is likely that 4424 has more ex-military men and ex-Civil Service men than the average KofC Council. This has kept us vibrant and active since we were formed In more recent years, the remaining churches of Old Norh Dayton have banded together to form the “Saint Gabriel Family of Parishes”; which also has its administrative center in Huber Heights and Our Lady of Peace Council 4424 is currently the Council serving this Family.
Our History
Council 4424 set up its first “Hall” in a small farm building located on a couple of acres of land off old Powell Road in Huber Heights, Ohio. It was more of a club house than anything else. But, in the next few years, the members raised the funds and arranged for the construction of a large building on the site. The address is 4293 Powell Road. If you go there in the next few years you can still see the building. As a mater of fact, as of this writing (2025) the building is still called “Our Lady of Peace Hall”. But, currently, it is a banquet hall for rent to organizations and families needed a large space for meetings, dances, and wedding receptions. The Hall was sold to the current owners in 2009. This was in response to two driving factors. The main factor was the increasing cost of upkeep. Although the Knights did most of the day-to-day maintenance and even some larger projects like improvements to the water systems, the cost of insurance and power and phone services were growing. The other factor was encouragement from upper level management within the KofC corporate structure to have Councils divest themselves of larger holdings, like Halls. While the Council was resident in the old Hall they conducted many family centered activities like Christmas parties for the children, Easter egg hunts and Cook Outs and family days. The Council also conducted money making activities like Fish Fries during the winter months and “Ham Shoots” in the fall. The latter involved setting up contests where shooters, using shot guns, shot at targets in the extended land to the north of the main building. The targets were then retrieved after each round of firing and examined to see which shooter had a put a BB hole closest to the bullseye. Prizes included hams, loins, bacon and at least one cash round. In the offing, the Council rented the Hall out to various organizations and individuals for special events – particularly wedding receptions. And, the Council held all of its monthly Business Meetings there. All in all, the old Hall was a busy place and the center of activities for a lot of people besides the Council itself.
Today
With the sale of the old Hall, the Council took up part-time residence in the basement of Saint Peter Church (at 6161 Chambersburg Road in Huber Heights.) We have some storage room there and hold our Business Meetings there every second Wednesday of the month starting at 7:30 PM. The room is a general-purpose meeting area for the Parish and has a serving area. The Council has taken advantage of this by setting up “Pancake Breakfasts” after the 8:30 AM Mass on about a monthly basis. Contributions are voluntary and are donated by the Council to various local charities. We have also used the facilities at Our Lady of the Rosary Church to conduct some of these breakfasts after their 9 AM Mass. We have also used the facilities at Saint Peter Church and School to conduct our annual Soccer Challenge and Free Throw Contests. We have conducted Easter Egg Hunts at the nearby soccer fields there as well. After the pandemic, we also helped “man” booths at the Saint Peter Spring Festival. And, each fall, we conduct an essay contest with the Sixth Grade classes at Saint Peter and Our Lady of the Rosary Schools to focus attention on the students’ “Favorite Saints”. Our Lady of Peace Council 4424 is an evolving and vibrant family centered organization. When it comes time in your life to “pay it forward” you might ask yourself, “What good can I, as one guy, accomplish?” An answer to that question, here in Huber Heights, is to join a group of men trying to do that together – with a little help from The Blessed Virgin. You can sign up right now. Just go to www.KofC.org and look for the place where you fill out the application. We’ll take it from there.