Human Services Receives $42 Million in Grant Funding with Zero Local Match
Good news for the V.I. Department of Human Services, which announced Thursday it will receive $42 million in construction grants with a zero local match. The grant money will go towards their Head Start program and benefit children and families that participate in the early childhood programs. “The program is not just educational, it is wrapped around the entire family,” said Commissioner of Human Services Kimberley Causey-Gomez. “It is the total support. It allows children to be in a secure and safe state-of-the-art environment that they can learn and are excited about learning and preparing for the next step, which is kindergarten.”
2021-09-03 13:04:47 - VI News Staff
The award includes funds to:
— Construct a state-of-the-art Head Start multi-classroom center at the currently shuttered Charles H. Emmanuel Elementary School site.
— Demolish and rebuild the Concordia Head Start
— Construct a Head Start center at the long unutilized Department of Human Services Bolongo property.
— Construct a mega center at the Tabor and Harmony site.
In September 2020, the Head Start Program worked with the U.S. Department of Human Services Administration for Children and Families Office of Head Start to fulfill all requirements for approval. The grant money was due to damage from the 2017 hurricanes Irma and Maria. “A lot of our facilities were damaged during this time,” said Causey-Gomez. The team is also awaiting decisions on two more grants that would increase the current construction total and Causey-Gomez said that the news should hopefully come by the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30.
The Department of Human Services said that the grants were complicated and detailed in nature, but the Head Start team fought to secure the resources that will tremendously benefit the territory’s youngest learners for generations to come. Causey-Gomez said how proud she was of the Head Start team and said there were factors that contributed to the zero local match.
“I think they looked at our poverty level, our history of serving our children and families respectively and doing that really well. We had the hiccup of two Category 5 hurricanes and now COVID-19. So, they looked at the needs of our islands and our community and that was proven in our application,” she told the Source.