Caption: Port Houston's Community Relations and Maintenance teams installing Little Libraries at Galena Park High School. 

Little Library Community Initiative

Port Houston and the Galena Park Independent School District partnered to bring some joy to the community. Leaders at Port Houston and Galena Park decided to start the Little Library Community Initiative.
This project began as an idea from one local member and her idea to support her area . With the help of Galena Park ISD librarians, Port Houston team members used their skills to design and build eight custom little libraries for the neighborhood.

Caption: The installation of Galena Park's Little Community Library.

The Little Library Community Initiative provides people of all ages 24/7 access to books and educational materials. These libraries are complete with a planter base filled with native Texas pollinator plants. Students and individuals can use the little libraries to discover a variety of books as well as share a love of reading, both in English and Spanish.

Why does book access matter?

According to Literacy Texas (2022), “Today, more than 43 million people in the United States cannot read or write above an elementary level and around 3 million Texas adults read below a basic level.”² With easy access to mobile devices, computers, social media, and television, it’s getting harder for students and adults to advance their reading and writing skills.

Roughly 63% of children were not reading at the appropriate grade level before the pandemic. That number increased to 72% according to LiteracyNow (2021).⁴

This initiative will encourage Galena Park community members to love reading, increase their access to books of all levels, and increase their comprehension levels with books in different languages.

Houston Yacht Club Boat Parade

Caption: Port Houston's Community Relations team joining the Houston Yacht Club's Opening Day fleet parade. The Port Houston Fire Boat and crew helps lead the way!

Port Houston’s team joined Commodore Farley Fontenot, and the Houston Yacht Club for the 2022 Opening Day fleet parade. The Port Houston Fire Boat and crew helped lead the parade and welcome the participating boaters.

This year the Houston Yacht Club celebrates the 125th anniversary of their founding, and today the oldest yacht club in Texas. (The Houston Yacht Club, 2022).¹ The opening day celebration took place with the traditional boat parade in which members’ boats pass in review and exchange salutes with an anchored officer’s boat. As a strategic leader and advocate for the channel, Port Houston is proud to join and support local recreational users of the Houston Ship Channel and Galveston Bay.

Port Houston is also excited to be a 2022 sponsor of Houston Yacht Club’s upcoming Beacon Group A-Class Catamaran World Championship Regatta taking place in Galveston Bay this May. Participants will be joining from all over the world to compete in the international maritime event. HYC is noted for excellence in race management and hosts 2-3 national or international regattas per year.

References
¹Houston Yacht Club. Home – Houston Yacht Club. (n.d.). Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://houstonyachtclub.com/web/pages/home

²Literacy facts. Literacy Texas. (2022, April 12). Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://www.literacytexas.org/impact/literacy-facts/

³Simmons, K. S. (2022, April 22). Texas facing crisis as student reading gap grows during pandemic. ABC13 Houston. Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://abc13.com/literacy-illiteracy-education-educators/11776796/

⁴The Problem. Literacy Now. (2021, September 3). Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://literacynowhouston.org/about-us/the-problem/

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Caption: Bahri shipping executives unveil ship model to Port Houston management.

Top executives with Bahri Group presented Port Houston with a beautiful ship model of Bahri’s M/V Jazan, a 26,000 dwt roll-on/roll-off cargo vessel, March 6 at the port’s executive building.

The model is a replica of the ship built in 2013 that regularly calls to Houston, and the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based shipping company is one of the largest providers of maritime services globally.

Port Houston has had a relationship with the company for decades. In January, Bahri handled the heaviest load of cargo in its history at Port Houston’s docks. Bahri is the leading direct RoCon liner service provider between the U.S. and the Middle East.

The shipping officials also discussed petrochemical activity along the Houston Ship Channel, Houston’s economic development opportunities and the port’s history. 

Bahri vessels are unique because they are used for multi-purpose operations and the company’s most recent fleet of RoRo vessels are larger than most and were designed for calling to Port Houston's docks, one of the representatives noted.

Bahri opened its second North American office in Houston in 2017.

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Port Houston was the first U.S. port of call during the inaugural voyage of the MSC Vittoria, a new larger vessel on the TA6 MedGulf service rotation at the Bayport Container Terminal Jan. 26.

The vessel's total capacity is about 8,089 TEUs.

The 1,066 ft. by 42.8 ft. ship is replacing the MSC Stella, which started calling to Houston in 2013. Port rotations in the service include Freeport, Bahamas, Sines, Portugal, Naples, Italy, Barcelona, Spain and Veracruz, Mexico.

“There is continued investment into our facilities, both landside and waterside, to handle the next generation of vessels to call the U.S. Gulf Coast,” said Ryan Mariacher, Port Houston director of container terminals.

Additional cranes are under construction and are slated to arrive at the Bayport Container Terminal later this year. Port Houston also recently expanded its truck gate hours at this facility to help meet customer demand.

Operations are continuing to expand at Port Houston to remain well ahead of the demand for cargo produced by the local petrochemical industry.

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