John Taaffe Named Knight Of The Year

John F. Taaffe of Sandy Hook has been named Knight of the Year by the 107th annual convention of the Knights of Columbus of Connecticut for his many volunteer efforts through the Catholic men’s charitable organization.

It is an honor that Mr Taaffe accepted graciously. But the new grand knight of Virgilius Council 185 in Newtown privately admitted that receiving this award, and the 1997-98 Father McGivney Award, made him feel a little uncomfortable.

“None of us do these projects to get an award,” he insisted. “But when I was told  ‘This [award] is not for you. It is to help motivate others to see the needs and respond,’ then I could understand its purpose.”

When John Taaffe moved to Newtown in 1992, buying a house on Clearview Drive in Sandy Hook, he saw an affluent, growing community. He joined St Rose Church and the local Knights council, and soon became aware that there were many people in need in Newtown and the surrounding areas.

“Mark Dennen, a past grand knight, started a project called ‘At Our Gate’ through which we have helped many people,” Mr Taaffe said. “We help people in need, regardless of whether or not they are Catholic.”

In his letter nominating John Taaffe for the award, Mr Dennen said Mr Taaffe was active “in essentially every project,” many of which involved home repairs and renovations, including new roofs for elderly residents on very limited income.

Citing one project as an example, Mr Dennen said the council had been approached to help a mother of three children, ages 2, 3, and 5, whose husband had abandoned them. She needed to fix up and sell her home to prevent foreclosure by the bank. “John solicited volunteers for a mammoth one-day blitz to clean and paint the inside of the home, clean out the garage, and build new stairs for the outside deck,” Mr Dennen said. “To get a jump start, he also organized retired Knights and a professional painter to ‘cut in’ all the trim the day before. Twenty-five volunteers completed the work in one day.”

When a used car was donated to the mother, Mr Taaffe asked a local car dealer to refurbish it. During the sale of the house, the prospective owners demanded additional work on the house, so Mr Taaffe organized volunteers to do it, Mr Dennen said.

John Taaffe knows how much a helping hand can mean. His father, Ronald B. Taaffe, died when Mr Taaffe was just 14, leaving six children, all still in school in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, where the family lived.

“My father was a past grand knight, in 1941-42,” Mr Taaffe said. “Two years ago his name was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Newfoundland because he organized amateur hockey in the area. But after he died, we had hard times. At one point we lived above a warehouse and were on welfare.”

John joined the Irish Christian Brothers when he was 16 years old. “I decided after a year that it was not for me,” he said. “I felt guilty that my mother was struggling, so I became an apprentice newspaper maker to help support the family for the next six or seven years.”

Finally, when his siblings were older and his mother moved to Toronto, he took a 50 percent pay cut to get a job with National Cash Register in 1969.

“My first job was changing ribbons in mechanical cash registers in banks,” he said. “Then I got into electronics and trained on one of the first scanning systems.” Six years later he joined Datachecker Systems Inc. as a technician. By the time he left in the firm in 1991, he was director of field operations for the company, now part of ICL Retail Systems. He was also married and the father of three.

“My wife, May, was my high school sweetheart,” he said. “We have three sons, Scott, 30, Nicholas, 25, and John Patrick, 22, who lives and works in Newtown, and we have four grandchildren.”

 Mr Taffe has been a member of the Knights of Columbus since he was 18.  “Besides my father, I have four uncles who were grand knights,” he said. “The Knights were founded in New Haven in 1881 by the Rev Michael J. McGivney, curate at St Mary’s Parish, because there was a lot of discrimination against the Irish. Many Irish Catholics couldn’t get insurance or jobs. The Knights of Columbus was formed to take care of widows of deceased members.”

Mr Taaffe joined a retailing systems company in Norwalk in 1991, where he was an account manager and vice president of customer care, and moved his family to Newtown. Not long afterwards he attended a degree ceremony held by the Knights at St Mary’s Church. “I’ll never forget that night,” Mr Taaffe said. “Growing up in Canada I heard often about Father McGivney, and it was so meaningful to me to have the opportunity to be at the place where it all started.”

Suddenly last year John Taaffe found himself without a job. “I was out of work for five months,” he said. “But I was never stressed. I really believed God would take care of me – I just didn’t know when.” Then four promising job offers came during a two-week period. Mr Taaffe decided to join Systech, as an account executive, selling high tech point-of-sale products to supermarkets. “It’s my first job in sales,” he said. “I was always in service management before. It’s a new fork in the road.”

One of the most important facets of the job was that it allowed the Taaffe family to stay in Newtown, close to family and friends, and to many people who are in need.

 “There is plenty to do right here,” Mr Taaffe said. “You don’t have to go outside town to find people in need. Now that my children are grown, I have the time to give. I count my blessings every day.”