The White-crowned Pigeon is a near threatened species and we have been seeing them in our front yard! Christie lays out seeds for them and we enjoy their occasional visits. Coincidentally, we came across an article by writer and photographer Robbie Lisa Freeman in the Los Angeles Audubon that mention the White-crowned Pigeon on St. Croix. Freeman is doing a series about birding in the US Virgin Islands and part 1 documents the birds she saw at St. Croix’s Southgate Coastal Reserve and more from her birdwatching experience.
As pointed out in the article, St. Croix has a lot of sweet spots for birdwatching. The Southgate Reserve, St. George Botanical Garden, the East End Nature Preserve and Marine Park, Green Cay National Wildlife Refuge, Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve, Buck Island Reef National Monument, The Nature Conservancy’s Estate Little Princess preserve, and more have been designated as wildlife sanctuaries to protect nesting habitat and destinations for birdwatchers to admire these amazing creatures.
We encourage you to read the full article here, and we can’t wait to read the rest of the series when it publishes! You can follow Freeman on Instagram @freebird2020LF to see her birding images.
The construction can now resume after FEMA’s clearance on the project. The new stadium is state-of-the-art sports complex in Frederiksted that will be adjacent the Festival Village. It is part effort to revitalize Frederiksted according to the VI Consortium. The Governor’s administration continues its plan of overhauling Frederiksted that includes renovating and upgrading the Ann E. Abramson Pier, landscaping and other enhancements to the Waterfront Park, rebuilding the Midre Cummings Park, street repairs and paving in Downtown Frederiksted and reconstruction of the Vincent F. Mason Sr. Coral Resort, known as the Frederiksted Pool area. We look forward to a transformation that will serve local residents and be a boost for tourism.
We are excited to hear that work is underway to rebuild the pool and facilities destroyed four years ago by Hurricanes Irma and Maria at the new Vincent F. Mason Sr. Coral Resort in Frederiksted. Local leaders broke ground on Tues. October 19, 2021. Reconstruction is slated to be completed by the second quarter of 2022!
The Department of Sports, Parks and Recreation and the Office of Disaster Recovery worked together to receive more than $2 million in grant funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the twin 2017 hurricanes destroyed the park.
The plans for the park, which has been known as the Frederiksted Pool area, include new pool, security lights, a lifeguard station and chairs, lights and fencing for turtle nesting, new benches, a new barbecue station, new volleyball nets and posts, and more according to the St. Croix Source. We look forward to seeing families getting together at the park to eat and play games and children learning to swim and having fun at the pool!
That hotel has been shut down for 4 years since Hurricane Maria and we get a lot of questions about when that’s going to re-open. We are so happy to seeing the relaunch in October! According to their September announcement on Facebook, the resort will be a room-only resort until February 1, 2022, and with the all-inclusive program on the horizon. See the resort website for details.
Named as one of Travel & Leisure’s Best All-inclusive Resorts in the U.S. Virgin Islands recently, the Divi Carina Beach Resort and Casino will be fully relaunched as an all inclusive, adults only resort with 200 rooms. The resort has redesigned rooms and suites and also includes an on-site casino, a restaurant and bar for late-night options. Amenities will include non-motorized watersports, a mini-golf course, tennis and pickleball and a 24-hour fitness center, along with two freshwater pools. Read more in the Caribbean Journal.
Photo courtesy of Divi Carina Beach Resort and Casino
Pickleball is a sport that combines tennis, badminton, and ping-pong all in one, and it’s growing in popularity in the US Virgin Islands!
The St. Croix Pickleball Committee thinks the sport gained traction in the territory about 2 years ago and has been organizing tournaments at different times in a year. The recent tournament on August 21st had 12 teams competing head-to-head for prizes and medals. The event was great outdoor fun for the participants and for the spectators who came out to support the event. Anyone interested in learning how to play pickleball or in donating towards improving the pickleball courts can contact Linda Midlikowski at 340-473-0215 (read the full article on St. Croix Source).
Congratulations to the winners of the tournament! – First place: Jayson Williams and Elle Abraham – Second place: Mayya Kawar and Brandon Rausch – Third place: Judy Leonardis and Alice Kuo
According to the USA Pickleball Association, pickleball has had a 650 percent increase in numbers over the last six years with the largest growth not necessarily in the over 60 age range. Created in 1965 near Seattle, pickleball was named after pickle boats, the thrown-together crew that sometimes competes in rowing. The sport has been popular for about 20 years in Florida and other places with large numbers of retirees. Currently, there are many municipalities and parks and recreation departments that are setting up courts, making it accessible to a younger crowd according to NBC News.
There’s no denying that the heart and soul of the Virgin Islands lies in the territory’s robust agriculture. With its rich, premium soil and its proximity to the equator, this combination creates a unique taste and texture in produce that surpasses the flavor of food grown on the United States mainland. St. Croix, an island once known as the “Breadbasket of the Caribbean,” has continued to make strides to eliminating food insecurity on the island with recent support from World Central Kitchen’s (WCK) Food Producer Network (FPN).
FPN was established in Puerto Rico 2018 in response to the devastating hurricane season the year prior. To date, $3.7 million in grants have been disbursed to over 200 food producers affected by natural disasters in the Caribbean and Central America. In 2020, WCK expanded the program to the Virgin Islands to support the farmers, fishers and food-related small businesses that suffered catastrophic losses after Hurricanes Irma and María. FPN helps to strengthen food security and sustain economic development throughout the territory’s food producing communities for many years to come.
Mikol Hoffman, Director of WCK’s Food Producer Network, shared his vision on how the program benefits the USVI. “We have seen through collected data that program participants increase their sales and production by over 50% after one year in the Network,” said Hoffman. FPN also works to connect its partners to each other and bring together a vibrant community of food producers who now actively collaborate through new production and distribution partnerships. This results in greater reach and increased market presence. “Through these efforts, program participants can become stronger as a whole than as individual food system operators and increase their productive resilience against future disasters.”
When asked about the potential of developing sustainable food systems in the USVI, Hoffman credited the territory’s abundance of fertile lands and abundant waters. “We see tremendous potential in not only developing a sustainable food system, but a thriving food economy with interconnected food producers working hand in hand.”
To date, WCK has invested over $300,000 through 20 grants across the Virgin Islands, with an average grant size of $15,000. Their latest round of funding invested $78,000 through five grants to food producers on St. Croix and St. Thomas including Concordia Farm, Crescent Farms, Kallaloo Farms, LLC and Mystical Farms on St. Croix and Tropical Pops Popsicles on St. Thomas.
For more information, please visit wck.org/fpn-usvi to learn more about World Central Kitchen’s Food Producer Network in the US Virgin Islands.
Photo of Kallaloo Farm – Edward Schuster
Article written by Anquanette Gaspard (agaspard@cruzanfoodie.com) for Coldwell Banker, St. Croix Realty
