The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy invites our friends and neighbors to the Festival of Lights interfaith holiday celebration.  The Festival of Lights has been an annual celebration for the past 40 years.  Please join us as we celebrate the holiday season.

Place:  USMMA Mariners’ Memorial Chapel, 300 Steamboat Road, Kings Point, N.Y.

Date:   Monday, December 11, 2017

Time:   7 p.m.

For anyone requiring assistance, please RSVP to externalaffairs@usmma.edu. Guests are encouraged to arrive early, as chapel as space is limited.

The Mariners’ Memorial Chapel, overlooking Long Island Sound, has been called the “people’s chapel” as it serves and honors all faiths.  It has been a refuge for divine guidance in times of celebration and in moments of peril. The chapel commemorates the sacrifices of the officers and men of U.S. Merchant Marine who gave their lives at sea during World War I and II. The Chapel belongs to merchant mariners and to all Americans; it stands as one of our country’s national memorials to America’s wartime seamen and serves to remind America of the great sacrifices of merchant mariners, especially in time of war. A large book, "The Roll of Honor," in the pedestal case near the front altar reminds us to “Tell America” and contains the names of every U.S. Merchant Mariner killed in the World Wars.  To this day, a page in the volume is turned each morning by the Midshipman Officer of the Day.