The latest groundbreaking for the pocket garden in downtown Selma is another step is what could save Selma’s tourism.

Sir Peter Bazalgette wrote in The Guardian in 2014, the huge value of arts and culture to society.

“Imagine society without the civilizing influence of the arts and you’ll have to strip out what is most pleasurable in life – and much that is educationally vital. Take the collective memory from our museums; remove the bands from our schools and choirs from our communities; lose the empathetic plays and dance from our theaters or the books from our libraries; expunge our festivals, literature and painting, and you’re left with a society bereft of a national conversation … about its identity or anything else,” he wrote.

The culture and arts can spread to all aspects of our town.

Bazalgette wrote about the spread of arts and culture, and how students excel when participating in events like this.

“There’s a strong relationship between arts and cultural engagement and educational attainment. We see an improvement in literacy when young people take part in drama and library activities, and better performance in maths and languages when they take part in structured music activities,” he wrote.

With the completion of the ArtsRevive project that includes art space and this garden, it will hopefully start a domino effect that will spread to other parts of our community.

The start of revitalization in downtown starts with ArtsRevive and they deserve our support.