Seattle Seafarers Center
An Affiliate of The Mission to Seafarers and Stella Maris
SEATTLE SEAFARERS CENTER NEWSLETTER
October 2024
Thank You for Attending Our Cruise Ship Luncheon!
Thank you for joining us for our cruise ship luncheon aboard Holland America Line Eurodam on October 5th! This was our first time hosting this event since the Covid-19 pandemic. It was a pleasure to see new and familiar faces.
Congratulations to Dave Stockert who received the Fr. Tony Haycock award for his enthusiastic and unwavering service to seafarers. Congratulations to the winners of our three raffle prizes, including a 7-day cruise, a sunset ride on Seattle's tall ship and a date night out in Issaquah.
We raised over $20,000 thanks to your generous donations - thank you so much for your support! We would not be able to continue our vital work for seafarers around the globe without you.
Thank you to all of our volunteers who helped the event run smoothly. We are looking forward to hosting another cruise luncheon next year. Be on the lookout for a save the date in the coming months!
Pull out your knitting needles and sewing machines...
It's Officially Ditty Bag Season!
Each year, the Center gives out over 1,000 "ditty bag" care packages to seafarers on our ship visits - this is one way we say thank you to these hardworking mariners and help them celebrate the holidays while far from home and family.
We are actively accepting donations of hand-knit hats, hand-sewn drawstring bags, and full-size toiletry items. For a full list of items we accept as well as knitting and sewing patterns, see our ditty bag page.​​
Please contact us at office@mts-seattle.org or 206-935-3439 to arrange a pick-up or drop-off of donations. Our goal is to collect all donations by the week of November 13, so we can prepare for our Ditty Bag Packing Day on November 23rd.
Save the Date - Ditty Bag Day 2024!
Our annual Ditty Bag Stuffing Day will be held on Saturday, November 23 at 10am. We will be at our usual location of St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in West Seattle.
We hope to see you there! You can RSVP on Eventbrite or Facebook.
Episcopal Diocese of Olympia's Annual Convention
We look forward to seeing some of you this Friday, October 25 at the 114th Convention of the Diocese of Olympia. Our team will be facilitating a workshop from 4pm - 5pm about seafarers' ministry, and we hope you will join us! We will also be staffing an exhibit table and will have more information about our upcoming ditty bag program and ways you can get involved.
If you have ditty bag donations, you are welcome to bring them to the Convention and drop them off at our exhibit table.
A Successful Cruise Shuttle Season
The 2024 cruise season wraps up this week with a final port call for Holland America Line's Westerdam.
Since April, we have driven over 8,600 crewmembers to downtown Seattle! We are so grateful for all our hardworking volunteers who helped provide this service.​​
Thank You to the ITF Seafarers' Trust !
We are excited that we have received a grant from the ITF Seafarer's Trust to purchase a combination of ditty bag supplies, new Center furniture, and ship visiting equipment. This grant will help us expand the number of ditty bags we can give out this winter, refurnish our Center to make it a more hospitable place to welcome seafarers, and equip some new volunteers in Everett and Tacoma. We look forward to sharing pictures as we start using the grant funds!
NAMMA Conference
In September, Rich, Julia, Dn. Joey and Holly attended the 2024 NAMMA Conference in Newark, NJ. It was an insightful week of learning from and connecting with other seafarers centers around the world. The conference theme was Serving Seafarers: First Things First. We focused on how to better serve seafarers holistically and across ports to establish a continuity of care.
Rich led a panel discussing the NAMMA internship program with past and present interns, including Holly.
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On the first night of the conference, we took a tour of the Port of Newark on the Sandy Hooks Pilot boat.
