ELKINS — The first of six scheduled Fish Fry Fridays hosted by the local chapter of the Knights of Columbus organization will get underway today at the St. Brendan Catholic Church.

The weekly dinners will take place at the St. Brendan’s Parish Hall and will take place each Friday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. The dates for this year’s dinners include: today, Feb. 27, March 3, March 13, March 20 and March 27.

“We are ready to get things going for this year’s Fish Frys,” Knights of Columbus member John Meader told The Inter-Mountain . “We will be running them for six straight Fridays and we will be offering the same.

The annual Fish Fry is the biggest fundraiser of the year for the Knights of Columbus. Money collected from the dinners is used for many different causes, Meader said.

“We support a lot of local things with the money we take in from the Fish Frys,” Meader said. “We donated some of the money to youth sports teams and we have scholarships we give to area high school students every year. We also use some of it for maintenance at the church and at the graveyard.”

The Knights of Columbus also collects canned food items during the Fish Frys that go to Catholic Charities, and obtains winter coats that are provided to those in need.

This will be the 15th consecutive year that the organization has hosted the Fish Frys dinners. Last year the Knights of Columbus served 1,900 meals during the six-week schedule.

“We had a really good turnout for the Fish Frys last year,” Meader said. “For the past several years we’ve done really well, and it’s not just parishioners who come out for the dinners, it’s the entire community as a whole comes out to enjoy the dinners that we have.”

Each dinner consists of a generous piece of crispy pollock, french fries, coleslaw, dessert, and a drink. Dine-in or carry-out is available and there is no charge for children 5 years old and under.

The local Knights of Columbus is made up of parishioners from churches in Elkins, Buckhannon, and Coalton. There are currently over 200 members involved with the organization.

“It takes a lot of us to put this on each week,” Meader said. “Not only do you have several people frying the fish, you have guys on the serving line, people cutting cakes, and setting up and cleaning up. We have over 20 people helping out with this each week.”

For more information about the weekly Fish Frys, check out the Saint Brendan Catholic Church’s website (stbrendanwv.weebly.com) or visit the church’s Facebook page.