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USVI gets $500K for 2017 Centennial celebration
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Interior Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas Esther Kia’aina announced Tuesday $500,000 in grant assistance under the Office of Insular Affairs’ Technical Assistance Program to the U.S. Virgin Islands Centennial Commission as it prepares to organize events and activities to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the transfer of the Virgin Islands from Denmark to the United States on March 31, 1917.
“I am pleased to support Gov. Kenneth Mapp, [Delegate] Stacey Plaskett, the members of the Centennial Commission, and the people of the U.S. Virgin Islands as they plan their celebration of this significant milestone in the history of U.S.-Virgin Islands relations,” said Kia’aina. “The next two years leading up to the actual Centennial Celebration presents a host of opportunities to showcase their rich history and heritage as well as the future of the Virgin Islands.”
The Virgin Islands Transfer Centennial Commemoration will be a territory-wide, multi-year observation with events and activities beginning in 2015 through December 2017. The centennial will be marketed to local, national, and international visitors and is expected to generate short- and long-term lasting impacts on the territory’s economy, stature and reputation. The commemoration will be used to build and reinforce local, state, national, and global connections.
Official events on St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John will range from parades, sporting events, concerts and multi-cultural celebrations to exhibitions and festivals featuring local art, dance and food. The program and activities are organized to highlight the continuum of historical events from the pre-Columbian period and indigenous inhabitants to Columbus and early European arrival, settlement of the Danish West Indies, forced migration of Africans, and the transfer to the United States, leading to the present day where the U.S. Virgin Islands are proud to be a U.S. territory and her people citizens of the United States. (OIA)
