MOULTRIE — A former mayor of Savannah, Ga., told a joint meeting of the Moultrie Rotary and Kiwanis clubs about the importance having an arts and cultural center in a community Thursday.

Susan Weiner, executive director of the Georgia Council for the Arts, said the arts are extremely important to have in a community. Here in Moultrie, we have one of the best arts centers in the state of Georgia, she said.

“You have a jewel in your community,” Weiner said. “There is no community in the state of Georgia that has a facility as large, as well-appointed and has as many programs as the one here in Colquitt County.”

The arts have been in existence since early man, Weiner said, and civilizations throughout history are remembered for their architecture, art and music. She said many corporations use arts as a method to determine whether they will settle into a community.

“The arts enrich not only our souls but also our pocketbooks,” Weiner said. “It is only the arts that make us laugh and cry simultaneously. They teach us about ourselves and others.”

The arts are still used today as a tool to teach and to enrich everyone’s soul, Weiner said. The state of Georgia has the arts in his budget because they improve educational processes, incorporate community development and advance economic prosperity.

Weiner said several studies have shown that children who are involved in the arts, such as piano lessons or dance, do better on tests and have a much higher graduation rate. One study also found children with attention deficit disorder had increased attention spans as well as improved test scores while involved in a dance program.

A perfect example of how the arts can be used to incorporate community development happened here in Southwest Georgia, Weiner said. Two women on the Colquitt, Ga., Arts Council wanted to do something to celebrate the city’s anniversary in 1991, turning a college student’s story into a play with a $2,000 budget and an all-volunteer cast.

Since then, Weiner said, “Swamp Gravy” brings in several thousands of people from all over the world to Colquitt to see its performances, bringing in “new money” to the community. The arts council there is the fifth largest employer in Miller County, she said, and it creates a sense of place for Colquitt residents while contributing to the community.

Metro Atlanta has seen economic prosperity thanks to the arts being such as integral part, Weiner said. Arts and cultural institutions are the seventh largest non-government commodity in the Atlanta area, larger than Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola and UPS.

To help emphasize the scope of the arts in Atlanta, Weiner said arts and cultural performances sold almost twice the number of tickets as the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta Hawks combined in 1997. Cultural tourism is the fastest-growing and most profitable tourist component, she said.

“The arts deserve recognition not currently enjoyed in this state,” Weiner said. “Arts are an enormous economic engine for this state, and they can be for this community.”

Weiner concluded by asking the crowd what this community would look like without the arts. She said it would be colorless, shapeless, voiceless and much poorer.