Tighter post-Sept. 11 port security restrictions create challenges for a local nonprofit outreach program for visiting merchant sailors.
Sailors on ships entering the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore often have needs including clothing and other personal items, and the Baltimore International Seafarer?s Center in Locust Point looks to help them. But the center must work with port security authorities, who are focused on protecting the country.
And the center doesn?t have much time to do it: The average container ship docks in Baltimore for eight to 24 hours, port spokesman Richard Scher said.
In addition, crew members are carefully monitored by port authorities. The ship?s master must provide port authorities with a full passenger and crew manifest at least 24 hours before the vessel?s arrival, or 24 hours before its departure from its last port of call, Scher said. That list must include anyone joining or leaving the ship at its last port.
Once docked in Baltimore, crew members must show their passport, or a photocopy of their passport?s identification page, to disembark, Scher said.
Meanwhile, the center works with the vessel?s agents and finds out whether anyone on board needs assistance or items, he said.
“Most of them come from third-world countries,” said the Rev. Mary Davisson, chaplain-director of the center, “and take these jobs not out for any glamorous travel reasons but to support their families.”
Founded in 1993 by an Episcopal deacon, the seafarer?s center has 11 volunteers, three part-time employees and Davisson, director since her ordination in 2005.
It has a budget of $150,000, which it uses to keep its doors open, fund center services and visit about half of the 40 ships in port each week, Davisson said.
“The most visible thing we do is help them communicate with their families,” added Davisson, who speaks several languages. Center services include discount telephone cards; Internet and telephone access; stamps and writing materials; and free Bibles, religious articles and magazines.
Davisson also said she strives to raise Baltimore community consciousness of the material, emotional and spiritual needs of long-voyaging, hard-driven merchant sailors by speaking at local churches and annually hosting an Inner Harbor cruise for sponsors ? the next of which sails Oct. 4.
“We are very fortunate to have groups like the seafarer?s center and their dedicated volunteers who take care of the needs of crew members thousands of miles away from home,” said Mary Jane Norris, port operations services manager at the Maryland Port Administration. “These groups make Baltimore a welcoming port of call.”
Examiner Staff Writer Aaron Cahall contributed to this report.
Baltimore International Seafarers? Center
1430 Wallace St., Baltimore
410-685-1240;
baltseafarers.ang-md.org
