2023 Project: Sharing Your Christmas With International "Seafarers Care Boxes" Project

One of the "Seafarer Care Boxes"

For the third year, Kingwood Rotary is partnering with the First Presbyterian Church Kingwood thanks to Former Texas State Representative Joe Crabb and his awesome wife, Nancy. Special thanks to Kingwood Rotarian Richard Briggs for suggesting this project to our club.

Imagine being a international seafarer on a ocean vessel that arrives at the Port of Houston during Christmas. You're far from home in a country where you don't know anyone and can't disembark from the vessel. To help them, the First Presbyterian Church members purchase and collect personal care items and create care packages for these seafarers. and then deliver them to the Houston International Seafarers' Center which then delivers these care packages when the vessels arrive here and Houston for distribution to the crew.

If you would like to donated items, please contact Kingwood Rotary President Charlie Buscemi - Click here!

Nancy and Joe are dedicated to collecting as many care boxes as possible, and Kingwood Rotary delivered 350 items to them for the seafarers. We thank Nancy and Joe for their dedication to their project that helps make the holidays special for seafarers from countries around the globe when their vessel arrives in Houston.

We recently received a letter last year from Jeffrey Baldwin with the Houston Seafarer's Center:

"We are especially appreciative of your boxes as we got them early, and kept getting them and began distributing them on December 6 to crews on ships that were at sea during the holidays. As of today (1/28/2022) we have distributed over 8,600. While I was visiting ships over Christmas, one ship was comprised of mostly an Eastern European crew including two ladies. They could not get off the ship while in Houston because their visas had all expired. As you can imagine they were very grateful for being visited and also for the Center being able to shop a little for them for just necessities. It is crews like this that are so thankful to people like you in showing that someone else cares when they are away from their families for an extended amount of time."

Below is a thank you note from another recipient which expressed his appreciation for this project:

"Hello, my name is Denis, I am from Russia, I am a sailor. Vessel Muhut. We came to the port of Houston and received a gift and Merry Christmas from you. I was very pleased to receive your gift and congratulations. For a Russian person, it is very surprising that people do not forget about others, even those they do not know. I wanted to express my heartfelt thanks to you. For me, a gift is not as important as attention, and especially in another country. Although I myself am an atheist, I would like to wish you success in your business. And maybe someday I will change my point of view about God. I hope someday our countries will become friends and I will be able to visit your amazing country with my family. Thanks again to your entire community. Merry Christmas!"