St. Thomas facility honors longtime child advocate and completes six Head Start projects across the Territory
ST. THOMAS, U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS — The Bryan-Roach Administration on Monday marked the opening of the Dilsa Capdeville Head Start Facility on St. Thomas, completing a $42 million federally funded initiative to rebuild and improve six Head Start facilities across the Territory.
Capdeville attended the ceremony alongside dozens of family members and friends, celebrating a dedication that recognizes her more than six decades of service as a social worker and advocate for vulnerable children and women in the Virgin Islands.
The new center strengthens the network of early childhood learning facilities serving Virgin Islands children and families. It is the sixth and final project completed through the territory-wide initiative funded by the federal Office of Head Start’s Disaster Recovery Funds.
“Strong matriarchs like Ms. Capdeville helped change how we, as a community, understood our responsibility to children,” Governor Albert Bryan Jr. said. “She helped move child welfare beyond something handled quietly within a household to something our whole community had a duty to care about. Her six decades of service remind us how much that work matters. Naming this center in her honor carries that lesson forward for every child and family who walks through these doors.”
The dedication connects Capdeville’s legacy of advocacy with a facility built to support children at the beginning of their education. Her presence, surrounded by family and friends, gave the ceremony a personal significance alongside the completion of a major public investment.
The opening advances two priorities of the administration’s recovery work: rebuilding public facilities to better withstand future disasters and improving the places where children begin learning. For families, the investment provides improved environments for early childhood education and stronger infrastructure supporting those services.
“The opening of the Dilsa Capdeville Head Start Facility is more than just the completion of a building; it is the triumphant finish line of a massive $42 million journey to secure the future of our children,” said Human Services Commissioner Averil E. George.
The center joins five other projects completed through the initiative: Cruz Bay on St. John; Anna’s Hope and Concordia on St. Croix; and Minetta Mitchell and Lindbergh Bay on St. Thomas. The $42 million funded the full six-project effort across all three islands.
“Today marks the ‘grand finale’ of a multi-million-dollar investment from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Head Start. ODR is pleased to have supported DHS in expending approximately $15 million for projects on St. Croix and $27 million for facilities in the St. Thomas/St. John district. Our office has provided both project and construction management, access to expedited payment processing, and advocacy and support through every hurdle,” said ODR Deputy Director of Finance and Compliance, Artra Watlington-Francis. “Projects of this magnitude require extensive coordination. ODR thanks its partners, DPW, DPP, DPNR, and WAPA, for their dedication to completing these projects, exemplifying how federal grants can help rebuild public facilities, restore essential services, strengthen our resilience, and provide opportunities to honor our Territory’s trailblazers.”
Through the federal disaster recovery funding, the Department of Human Services rebuilt and improved early childhood facilities with an emphasis on resilience and the needs of young learners. Completion of the Dilsa Capdeville center closes the construction phase of that initiative, with its lasting value measured in the children and families these facilities will serve.
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