CRIT breaks ground on long-awaited permanent Head Start facility

More than 300 people gathered at Mohave Road and Navajo Avenue in Parker on April 15 to watch Colorado River Indian Tribes break ground on a permanent Head Start facility that leaders say has been years in the making. The project moves forward on land the Tribal Council set aside in 2009, ending a long stretch of planning and fundraising for a program that has been part of CRIT life since 1965.

That delay mattered because the new building is meant to solve practical bottlenecks as much as symbolic ones. A permanent site should give CRIT Head Start more stability, better enrollment capacity and a more dependable place for families to get early learning services. The current program serves children ages 3 to 4 and provides education, health, nutrition, mental health, transportation and special-needs services, all of which become harder to scale when a program is housed in temporary or constrained space.

Funding was the other major hurdle. A 2023 report on the project said CRIT Head Start received a $13,826,500 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, for construction, with the tribe responsible for a 20% non-federal match. That financing structure helps explain why the project took so long to move from a land designation to a shovel in the ground.

Chairwoman Amelia Flores told the crowd the ground was “blessed and sacred,” framing the project as both a community investment and a statement about future generations. The ceremony included a children’s parade and cultural performances representing the Mohave, Chemehuevi, Hopi and Navajo tribes, a reminder that the new facility is being built for a community that is itself multi-tribal and deeply rooted in Parker and the Colorado River corridor.

The stakes are high in a reservation that covers nearly 300,000 acres, stretches along about 90 miles of Colorado River shoreline and is home to about 8,385 residents. CRIT’s Head Start program began the same year the federal American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start component launched in the summer of 1965, part of a national program now serving around 28,000 children of AIAN heritage. For families in La Paz County who depend on a small number of institutions for child care, education and support, the permanent building at 18026 Mohave Road is a sign that one of the region’s most important early childhood programs is finally getting the home it has waited decades to build.