JAY – The Knights of Columbus Council 320 will hold a fundraising event at 5 p.m. Saturday, May 6, at the St. Rose Parish Hall, Main Street.

The menu will include pasta with meat sauce, salad, bread, drink and desert for $5. Advance tickets are available by calling Grand Knight Tom Welch at 897-9509. Tickets will also be available at the door.

There will be assorted raffle items and a plant sale, as well. Half of the money raised will be donated to the Campaign for the Harold Alfond Center for Cancer Care and the other half will go to a fund for roof repair on the council’s meeting hall.

Working with the Maine General Medical Center, the Knights of Columbus of Maine will solicit pledges for the Alfond Center. Harold Alfond donated $7 million, the largest single gift that the foundation has given, and challenged the Knights of Columbus of Maine to raise $50,000 over a five-year period. which the Knights accepted. The hospital is scheduled to open in August of 2007.

The cancer center will consolidate two outpatient medical and radiation cancer services and relocate two hospital-based medical oncology practices and one community-based radiation oncology practice into one regional cancer center.

The construction will allow Maine General to offer patients the state-of-the-art equipment and treatment.

Manchester resident Mark Johnston, president and CEO of Kennebec Savings Bank, has agreed to serve as campaign chairman. The goal is to raise $10 million before June 30; then the campaign will enter its “public phase,” when the rest of the project will be funded by smaller donations like the Knights of Columbus and other local fundraisers.