Become a volunteer

Consider devoting a few hours to helping SCW. Your contact with seafarers from all parts of the world will open a new and rewarding world for you.

Many non-profits claim volunteers make it happen – but at the Seamen’s Center of Wilmington, volunteers not only make it happen, they are the lifeline for international mariners arriving in the State of Delaware.

Imagine leaving your home, family, and all things familiar to go to work for nine months (or more) and not seeing, touching or even tasting your favorite things until your contract is over and you can return home. In a nutshell, that is exactly the life that seafarers experience.

At SCW our volunteer staff help many of these men hold their lives together with a welcoming handshake and an offer of assistance. Volunteers at the Seamen’s Center of Wilmington welcome more than 10,000 mariners every year.

It is common to have volunteers report that they were serenaded by a guitar playing mariner, or that they helped a young man select an engagement ring for his future bride. And it is not unusual for someone to open up their heart and share their personal problems or loneliness.

​Whether it is an amusing anecdote regarding difficult communication or assistance making a mundane purchase, the SCW volunteers have seen it all. And at the end of a day’s work, all of the SCW crew love to share how rewarding it can be to help a stranger in a strange land.

scw_how_to_volunteer_fact_sheet.pdf