A breakfast "Mast Stepping" ceremony was held in Marinette. Sponsor Polly Spencer added items to the mast box, and was then presented with gifts and certificates. Mast-stepping is an ancient Greek and Roman practice of putting coins at the base of a mast of a ship under construction and has continued throughout history. It is believed that due to the dangers of early sea travel, the coins were placed under the mast so the crew would be able to cross into the afterlife if the ship were sunk. The Romans believed it was necessary for a person to take coins with them to pay Charon, who in Greek mythology is the ferryman of Hades, the god of the dead and the king of the Underworld, in order to cross the river Styx, a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld, to the afterlife. Another theory for this practice is that the insertion of coins in buildings and ships may have functioned as a form of sacrifice thanking the gods for a successful construction, or a request for divine protection in the future. A third theory is that corrosion-resistant coins of gold or silver provided a physical barrier minimizing the transmission of rot between the wooden mast and wooden mast step. Modern U.S. Naval mast stepping consists of having mementos from the ship placed in a small box, which is welded shut and then welded to the mast.