‘St. Croix Has So Much Potential Right Now’: Student Ignites Hope Through Sion Farm Entrance Mural

ST. CROIX — By Monday, the Sion Farm entrance, once abandoned and overtaken by grass and debris, will transform into a welcoming sight that residents making their way to and fro Christiansted, near the Sion Farm stoplights, will no doubt take pleasure in beholding.

That’s because Free Will Baptist Christian School adopted the area in early April and began beautifying the intersection by first chopping down the bushes that accumulated over the years, then moved to painting, redecorating and maintaining the area. The school was aided by Christian missionaries from North Carolina.

The next phase of the project was to create a mural on the front-facing wall that would attract the attention of onlookers. For that, Free Will Baptist Church pastor Gene Wooton, overseer of the undertaking, tapped former Freewill student Victor Cepeda, who’s studying industrial design in Puerto Rico at the University of Turabo, with the job.

Victor Cepeda holds up a drawing of the Sion Farm mural.

Cepeda, a St. Croix native, said the pastor told him he had no idea what mural to draw, leaving Cepeda with no choice but to conjure up something unique.

Cepeda left Puerto Rico and traveled back to his land specifically to create the mural. He told VI Consortium that, although the island is currently in an economic gloom, he wanted to show residents that there’s still a lot of potential here; something he hopes will be demonstrated through the painting.

“This is my island, and St. Croix has so much potential right now and they do not even see it,” he said. “And I want to show them what their island looks like. I want to show them a reborn, animated version of St. Croix, representing the entire island — I want to make it look nice and tropical and very inviting.”

Attending Lew Muckle Elementary School as a child and Freewill Baptist School for the 9th and 10th grades, Cepeda said he drove past the Sion Farm entrance for years and no one noticed it because nothing about the area stood out.

“Now, everybody’s looking over here. When the light turns green, everybody’s beeping like, ‘hey, move it,'” he said.

Asked about the youth brain drain problem affecting the Virgin Islands as students like Cepeda leave the territory for higher education and never return, the student said the youth who leave can’t be blamed.

But that won’t be Cepeda’s story, as he told The Consortium he will return home to start a business.

“I want to come back here and start a business that would give St. Croix a little update — maybe sell a product at a cheaper price that most people can afford, because everything here is expensive and we need money to pay the bills,” Cepeda said.

“But what if I could find some kind of solution that people can buy stuff at a cheap price and they can live comfortably. That’s what I’m trying to accomplish.  I’m going to come back home and try and fix the island somehow,” he concluded.