Something very good happened Tuesday at the Natchez Mall — job shoppers came in search of opportunity.

Of the more than 200 prospective applicants who came out for Tuesday’s job fair, certainly dozens will be connected with a life-changing job opportunity in the very near future.

We’re thankful both for the organizations that sponsored the job fair but also for the participants.

A skilled and willing workforce is critical to our area’s future.

That’s why education and job-training skills are so important for our community to continue keeping front and center of our collective focus.

A growing population of employed people is critical to our community’s continued existence. Without that, we’re dying.

The seeds of our community’s success are planted in early childhood education, when foundations of learning are established, but carry on throughout a child’s school years.

The Miss-Lou Work Ready Initiative aims to get a snapshot of our current workforce’s skill levels through the Work Keys certification process. The program is testing a large sample of our community’s current workforce in an effort to help us all understand and recognize any gaps between the skills our workforce possesses and the skills employers seek.

Over time, that gap should close with focused effort and attention. Tuesday’s job fair may have been the first of many such good economic events to come through our community’s continued, steady focus on building upon what we have — our people.