Photo:  Boxes being unloaded at the Houston Seafarers Center.

Christmas Boxes for Port of Houston Seafarers 2017

We had a fantastic year of preparing, packing and delivering the Christmas Boxes for the Port of Houston Seafarers.  Thank you to the numerous people who donated items, sorted items, packed boxes, wrapped the shoe boxes, and brought the items to the Houston Seafarers Center.  Thank you to the Men in Mission of MLLC for sponsoring this program each year.

Here is a bit of history of our preparation and sending of boxes:

In 2014 there were 34 boxes assembled.

In 2015 there were 50 boxes assembled.

In 2016 there were 49 boxes assembled.

In 2017 there were 63 boxes assembled.  This is a record high since we revived our participation in this ministry.

The Port of Houston Chaplains are our ambassadors to these seafarers. They visit the ships and bring the boxes to the crews. On their web site the chaplains tell us: “Crew sizes vary between 8 and 30, with an average number of 22 seafarers to gift per ship. In 2015, we placed 12,278 gifts on board 538 ships which had seafarers from 65 different countries! These gifts had been donated to the seafarers by 246 churches and organizations! The Christmas boxes are personally carried to each ship by your staff of Port Chaplains.” Their web site is here – Click Link.

Here are some photos of the work of assembling the boxes in November 2017.

Here are some photos of the new Houston Seafarers Center and the delivery of the boxes on November 28.

Getting Ready for the Next Time

For this year (2018), please gather items such as these for the men on the ships – you can buy things throughout the year and drop these off at any time. We will be assembling the boxes on Monday, November 26, 2018, at 6:00 p.m.

There is a large blue storage bin for this purpose in the room directly across from the church office.  Here is the list:
Empty shoe boxes or purchased plastic shoe boxes to pack the items.
Address books
Band-aids (fabric)
Baseball caps
2019 Calendars
Comb
Dental Floss
Antiperspirant/deodorant
Disposable razors
Flashlight and batteries
Kleenex – small packs
Lip balm
Lotion
Nail clippers
Gold Bond cream
Gold Bond powder
Hot Chocolate (individual serving size)
Needles and thread
Q-tips
Shaving cream
Soap
Shampoo
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Gum and hard candy
Key chains
Pocket-sized notebooks
Mechanical pencils
Pens
Playing cards
Microwave popcorn (individual packages)
Socks
Sudoku books
Texas souvenirs
T-shirts
USB flash drives
Word search books