Good Samaritans rushed to the aid of stranded seafarers aboard the Yangtze Fortune during a months-long saga, but the Portland charity they belong to says it's struggling to stay afloat.
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Food parcels, shuttle rides to shore, welfare checks and personal shopping were all services provided to the skeleton crew stuck onboard the embattled livestock carrier as it lay abandoned in the Port of Portland for six months.
While the 16 Filipino nationals were successfully repatriated last week, volunteers from Mission to Seafarers - which had received widespread kudos after helping them to do so - returned to a bleak reality.
President Neville Manson said little changed following the now-infamous incident.
"With all the coverage we had about the Yangtze Fortune, we put up a donation link," he said.
"How much do you think we got in donations? $350, from three people. One of them was a volunteer from the mission."
Funding remained a challenge, Mr Mason explained, after the charity was left reeling after the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We lost $39,000 in the first year of COVID and $36,000 the second year," he said.
"We're just trying to get back up and running again.
"Our main two sources of income are service fees to the shipping agents - that's transporting the crew to the doctors or an appointment or if their contract is finished, we'll transport them to Melbourne and charge the shipping company the invoice for that cost. That equates to about $50,000 income per year.
"The other thing we do is the shuttle service we run every hour around the ships and the town - about $50,000 a year we get from the port to do that.
"We lost both of those things during COVID - that's $100,000, gone.
"Prior to that, we were making a profit of $35,000 a year which went into an investment we had. Part of those funds went towards a backup bus, but COVID hit and we had to pull out whatever funds were in there. We had to close accounts to balance the book."
Mr Manson said the cost of operations was high for the extensive list of services they provided.
"When a ship comes in we do a ship visit, we get onboard and tell them who we are, what time the bus service operates, how far it is into town, ask them whether they need phone cards, tell them we have free internet at the mission and provide general information about the town," he said.
"We'll sit and have a cuppa with them to get a sense of any issues. Often the crew aren't very forthcoming if there's an issue because they might worry about their employment.
"For example, the issue might be that they haven't been paid, the food is terrible onboard, or they might have an emergency at home and they need to call or get back."
Onboard the Panama-flagged woodchipper Eagle Sky, chief engineer Domingo Conje told The Standard the mission's services were renowned.
"If there is a branch, we go straight there and if there's an issue we talk to the chaplain, they're the one who arranges help and makes communication for us," he said.
"They want to know what our complaints are. We're lucky if there's a seafarer's mission where we go.
"Sometimes if there's turmoil where we stay, we're not allowed to go outside so we're very lucky if they're there. They always ask if there's anything they can do to help us."
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