Serving the Port's `invisible people'

The Rev. Christine Anttila, a Lutheran pastor, calls the sailors who come to Duluth-Superior on oceangoing ships "the invisible people, the ghost people." They might be invisible — hidden these days behind heightened post-9/11 security measures — but they have very real needs. The Seafarers Center of Duluth exists to tend to those needs.

Someone from the Center "meets and greets" virtually every oceangoing ship that calls on Duluth-Superior, the Rev. Anttila says, and offers officers and crew members a touch of home. If they can get permission to leave the ship for a few hours, the sailors will be taken under the wing of a Center volunteer. The Center's trusty van might be pressed into service for a shopping trip, or it might deliver the sailors to the Center for a bit of wholesome R&R.

The Center offers warmth and hospitality, a big-screen TV complete with video games, the inevitable pool table and something much more important — Internet access for e-mail or inexpensive calling cards so homesick sailors can call home. If the sailors can be away from the ship overnight, the Center can even put them up in private or semi-private rooms, at no cost to the sailors. "This is a quiet, pleasant place, filled with pleasant people — who aren't shipmates," says the Rev. Anttila.

Christine Anttila

The Center also has a big inventory of new and barely used clothes, including heavy, bulky — warm — stuff that sailors from places like Thailand and the Philippines find especially attractive. The clothes are available at no cost. Every sailor is offered a home-made ditty bag of goodies and necessaries, and at holiday time the Center has gift packages ready for the sailors. "We are primarily a mission of hospitality," says the Rev. Anttila.

The Center was founded in 1969 by the Rev. Norbert Mokros — in a trailer near Duluth's grain elevator docks. In 1975, the Center moved to its current location, 2024 W. Third St. in Duluth's West End, or Lincoln Park, neighborhood. The Center once was the rectory of the St. Clements Catholic Church. The Rev. Mokros retired and left the Center in 2000. He was succeeded by the Rev. Terry Stratton, who in turn left the Center in 2004. After the Center had been closed briefly, the Rev. Anttila came on board. She has taken on the job of rebuilding the Center to its former vitality with a clear sense of energy and mission. That mission includes the Center's role as a Christian ministry, although the Rev. Anttila makes clear that the Center respects and welcomes people of all religions and faiths.

The Center survives on donations from churches — Lutheran and otherwise — and businesses and civic organizations. It runs on the energy of a tiny staff and many volunteers. The Rev. Anttila's idea of the perfect volunteer is "someone who has a bigger vision of the world, an awareness of other cultures, an awareness of what it's like to be a stranger. We know how important it is to be welcomed."

For further information: (218) 727-5897.