If you haven't gotten a chance to appreciate the variety of youth creativity that abounds in Homer, you're in luck. At least until the end of the month you can visit (and patronize) a plethora of local businesses displaying youth art.

Be sure not to miss the exhibits at the Pratt Museum and the Homer Council on the Arts. HCOA features inspiring work by students grades K-12 from Razdolna. The Pratt is exhibiting the relationship of art and science through "Beauty and the Bug." Ptarmigan Gallery is now hosting student work from the college. On Friday, you have the opportunity to support the "Artist in the Schools" program sponsored locally by the Bunnell Street Gallery by attending a marionette theater and dessert auction. Critically important considering the lack of formal arts education resources the schools now have.

On Saturday, you can rejoice in the annual Jubilee Youth Variety show. The proceeds from this performance, as well as "the Jazzline Dancers," cycles right back to the kids through the HCOA arts education scholarship program. Last year nearly $4,000 was distributed to youth grades 6-12 to further their creative pursuits.

Earlier this month, the nationally known group, "Ball in the House," sang to a packed house comprised of mostly kids. Through the support of WESTAFF and Conoco Phillips, the group worked with the Homer High School Swing Choir and performed for West Homer Elementary and Fireweed Academy students.

These experiences epitomized the value of arts education in our community: Kids excited about singing; learning the power of their voice.

Thanks to the facilitation of local music educators, Cherish Bee McCallum, and Mark Robinson, among numerous other wonderful teachers, our youth get the opportunity to explore their capabilities through a variety of arts disciplines.

To some, arts education seems like "an extra." Witness the lack of arts educators funded in the school district here and across the nation.

Yet increasingly, research is proving, what many of us know intuitively, that the arts play a critical role in child, youth, adult and community development. Even if a child's drawing of last night's dream never hangs anywhere more prominent than a refrigerator door, that act of creation can unlock a young mind in ways that scientists and educators are only now beginning to understand.

Thankfully, in Homer, as we celebrate this month of Jubilee, we can see that drawing in a public gallery and hear that song in the theater. The visions and voices of not only tomorrow but more importantly, of today. I invite you to look and listen.

Hope Finkelstein is the executive director of the Homer Council on the Arts.