Socks, hats and potato chips might not seem like the most exciting Christmas presents for those of us on dry land, but they’re hot commodities for the mariners who crew cargo ships that spend weeks at a time crisscrossing the world’s oceans.
The Fort Vancouver Seafarers Center has for decades sought to provide support for seafarers on ships docked at the Port of Vancouver, including gift bags for those spending Christmas far from home. That work is more important than ever this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Seafarers Center director Kent Williams said the organization is aiming to deliver twice as many bags as usual this year.
“These guys have been quarantined on their ships since March,” Williams said.
The increased need has been met by a rise in community support. The center’s own gift bag operation has been augmented by donations from the Vancouver Heights United Methodist Church and the Pacific Coast Coalition for Seafarers, a Portland-based advocacy group that formed in June.
Pandemic conditions
Seafarers already face tough working conditions during monthslong stretches aboard cargo ships, but the pandemic has dramatically exacerbated their predicament, leaving many seafarers essentially stranded at sea.
There have always been restrictions — not all seafarers have the shore passes that they need to disembark, and those who do are now typically required to stay at the Seafarers Center on port property, although they can be escorted out on shopping and sightseeing trips.
But in the pandemic era, even that level of exploration is gone. Crews are no longer allowed to disembark at all, and Seafarers Center staff can’t get on to the vessels, either, Williams said. Care packages usually have to be delivered through intermediaries.
Worldwide, the sudden onset of the pandemic has trapped more than 300,000 seafarers — roughly a quarter of the total seafarer population — aboard their vessels, unable to legally disembark at foreign ports. Repatriation has been tricky, especially for seafarers from countries whose governments haven’t stepped up to create a clear process.
Seafarer work contracts can last up to 12 months under international law, but those who were nearing the end of their contracts when the pandemic hit have been trapped all the same, keeping them at sea long after they were supposed to return to shore.
“A lot of the people we’re meeting, they’re saying they’ve been out there for 16 to 18 months and still don’t know when they can go home,” said Jessie Braverman, a spokesperson for the of the Pacific Coast Coalition.
Holiday donations
The Seafarers Center received a large donation Dec. 9 from the Vancouver Heights United Methodist Church. A procession of cars assembled at the post administrative office before driving onto the port so the group of more than a dozen volunteers could drop off the supplies at the Seafarers Center.
The boxes of wrapped Christmas mugs filled with hot chocolate packets and candy joined an already sizeable array of socks, snacks, knitted hats and other items waiting on tables inside the building where volunteers are gradually assembling the gift bags.
The Rev. Jo Ann Schaadt said the donation idea came about because the church has been closed since March and on the lookout for ways to continue its mission and justice work. A few church members had previously volunteered at the Seafarers Center and put the two groups in contact. Williams suggested the mugs, Schaadt said, as a way to augment the center’s gift bags.
“So in July, we started collecting Christmas mugs at Goodwill,” she said.
Church members kept making visits to Goodwill stores through the fall, she said, and by November the group had amassed more than 500 mugs to donate, along with other supplies like socks and potato chips. Schaadt said the church has already volunteered to collect another round of mugs next year, pandemic or no pandemic.
Coalition for Seafarers
Another round of supplies was scheduled to arrive Thursday, this time from the Pacific Coast Coalition for Seafarers. The organization was formed with the goal of providing a public voice to advocate for seafarers, and it counts the Vancouver Seafarers Center and the Portland Seafarer Mission among its partner agencies, along with several human rights organizations and labor unions.
For the holiday season, the group is working on an “adopt-a-ship” program that seeks $250 donations from churches and other organizations to provide holiday care packages to everyone on the “adopted” ship. The goal is to provide 1,250 holiday packages to seafarers in Vancouver and Portland over the next two months, Braverman said.
The coalition program is separate from the Vancouver Seafarer Center’s own holiday gift bag distribution, although the center will help distribute some of the coalition’s bags. The gifts are also similar — socks, hats, snacks and other items that are hard to find out at sea.
The coalition plans to host a Community Volunteer Day from 2 to 4 p.m. Dec. 19 at the Port of Portland’s Terminal 2 (3556 N.W. Front Ave., Portland), where visitors will be able to help assemble care packages and participate in an educational discussion about the hardships faced by seafarers.
Looking to the coming year, Braverman said the coalition will remain focused on delivering supplies, but will also try to push further on the community education side of things, including plans for a four-month educational series about the history of the seafarers’ working environment.
“Even when the pandemic passes, we know that the seafarers will still be working under really exploitative conditions,” she said.
