Ministry to seafarers heads to a new home
Seamen's Church Institute is selling its 102-year-old headquarters and moving to a Center City warehouse.
By Henry J. Holcomb
Inquirer Staff Writer
The Seamen's Church Institute, a haven for thousands of lonely seafarers who visit the Philadelphia area each year, has put its granite-columned headquarters up for sale.
The 102-year-old landmark at 249 Arch St., with its two-story main hall and marble decor, has been the institute's home since the 1970s. But the building, which for its first 70 years housed the Girard Corn Exchange Bank, has become more than the ministry to seafarers can justify.
So next month, it will move to a former office furniture warehouse at 475 N. Fifth St. on the edge of Center City.
The old building is gaining in value as the neighborhood improves. Now, a commercial enterprise can appropriately spend $2 million to restore the building, the Rev. James D. Von Dreele, the institute's executive director, said.
But that is more than a church agency - with a strong post-Sept. 11 need to expand its ministries - should spend, according to Father Von Dreele.
The center's new, 31,000-square-foot headquarters will have three times more space at less cost - enough for a chapel, a bank of computers that mariners can use to e-mail buddies on other ships and families back home, and a basketball court.
The 159-year-old institute offers both practical and spiritual support for seamen, safeguarding them from criminals and others who might take advantage of them.
This support also helps to avoid costly delays that would hurt business at the port.
By calling people who work on the waterfront to a "ministry of caring for strangers," the venerable center helps form relationships among at times contentious waterfront factions. The institute serves seafarers of all faiths.
"We offer a short moment of grace in seafarers' lives. When they go back out to sea, they can feel good about Philadelphia and the people here," Father Von Dreele said.
The stress of being confined aboard ships for months at a time is running especially high now. Automation is reducing crew sizes while language barriers are rising along with multinational crews. "There is little sense of community or social life at sea," Father Von Dreele said.
"Our new basketball court will be very important. They need a place work off steam," he said.
Mesfin Ghebrewoldi and other staff members visit most of the 1,900 large ships that dock each year at 26 Delaware River seaport terminals, from Marcus Hook to Fairless Works. These vessels bring bananas from Central America, winter fruit from Chile, and frozen meat from Australia and New Zealand, as well as oil, steel, wood, paper and cocoa beans from far-flung points.
The institute's staff includes speakers of 20 languages, and it helps with varied problems, sells prepaid phone cards that seafarers use to call home, and offers counseling. Since Sept. 11, 2001, some mariners - including all those on tanker ships docked at local refineries - are not allowed ashore. So the institute increasingly provides cell phones and conducts worship services aboard ships.
For those who do come ashore, the institute offers free transportation to stores and its center, and, occasionally, tickets to a 76ers game at the First Union Center.
The institute also intervenes to try to solve issues concerning seafarers, ranging from not being paid to inadequate food and a lack of movies in the languages crew members speak.
Much of the seafarers' pay goes home to support large extended families. "If the money isn't on time, they are in trouble: They can't pay rent or buy food," Father Von Dreele said.
The Seamen's Church Institute maintains close ties with authorities in countries such as the Philippines to help it protect seafarers from unscrupulous ship operators.
Sometimes the staff is backed by lawyers on its volunteer board in wielding proper authority to stop abuse. At other times, face-to-face with a rogue sea captain, "you simply step out on faith," Father Von Dreele said.
"We almost always negotiate a solution," he said. "Going to court is the last resort."
The seamen's center has its roots in the Episcopal Church, but its work and $850,000 annual budget are supported by more than 100 local churches of many faiths, as well as maritime businesses, port agencies and labor unions.
Like churches in other communities, the institute and its staff people are involved in a broad range of activities, offering pastoral care to the people who work there and fostering better relations for doing business.
"The port is my parish," Father Von Dreele said. "I try to bring a sense of God's grace to the work we all do."The Philadelphia Inquirer
Posted Sat, Jan. 04, 2003