We hope the newest addition to the leadership of St. John’s School of the Arts, as reported in Monday’s edition of the Sun-Gazette, assists the program in continuing to meet the needs of Williamsport and surrounding communities. The school is yet another example of our region’s artistic and cultural heritage.

The gifts and contributions the arts make to our communities are varied and important.

They provide the kinds of opportunities that make our region more attractive to young families and in turn to the employers who need those mothers and fathers as a workforce. As we have editorialized often, bringing more jobs and more people to our region are likely the greatest challenges our communities face and, we frequently find, a key aspect to resolving other challenges.

The arts provide our young people experiences that can develop into their own careers and future passions. We believe the best course for both enabling young people to find the work that most greatly satisfies their own desires and enables employers to find employees that are the best fit for their needs hinges on offering people the greatest array of informed choices — and providing people opportunities to learn music or the visual arts or to join the cast or crew of a play is part of offering such opportunities.

Beyond these practical, perhaps unromantic concerns, the arts simply make our lives richer, more full — better.

Along with Lycoming Arts and its hard work at organizing First Friday events and otherwise introducing our downtown and other neighborhoods to how enriching the arts can be in our lives and organizations like the Uptown Music Collective, Community Theater League and others, St. John’s School of the Arts brings a more fully realized and complete quality to our lives. We believe everyone who lives in our region should appreciate what these programs do to make all of our lives better.