- And greetings, Debi.

We're wanting to ask our congratulations on the milestone.

You've all just celebrated the 65th anniversary of Lycoming Arts and 25 years for First Fridays.

And that says so much about Williamsport commitment to public art.

We just want you to tell us, please, first about Lycoming Arts mission, please.

- So, Lycoming Arts, we feel very strongly about connecting the community with the artists and the artists with the community.

We feel as though we are kind of the bridge for that to happen.

And we have so much art here, music, visual, you know, performance.

There's a plethora for us to work with.

And so, yeah, that's our goal is get the art out there, get the people to the art and you know, I think like these murals that you were talking about on the buildings, it's for everyone, right?

It's not just for the people who can afford it.

So that's our goal.

- That's good.

And specifically subset, First Friday, of course, is bringing everybody to downtown to celebrate the arts, right?

- Right.

And again, like you said, it's our 25th year.

We're very excited about that.

We close the streets and at once a month, on the first Friday of every month, we bring in artists and craftspeople.

Everything has to be, you know, made by hand.

You know, there's not other kind of just generic sales things, but everything has to be, you know, a craft or an art.

We include culinary.

So we have the Taste of Williamsport, which has morphed into the Spirit of Williamsport.

So the bars now get on board and they add some sort of culinary treat for people.

So we have, you know, around 140 vendors every month.

We have three stages that we fill with bands.

We have, you know, food trucks that we're very careful and conscious about not overdoing the food trucks so that, you know, the restaurants aren't, you know, impacted in a negative way.

But we try to get everybody down here, we're bringing about 6,000 people a month downtown.

So it's been a boon for the city, and certainly, people are starting to notice us.

I mean, we've been trying to determine where people are coming from and we've had people from New York and Ohio and as far away as Florida that have come to our event.

Pretty sure they were coming through anyway, but, you know, we'll take it.

- [Erika] What a shot.

- [Debi] We really enjoy it.

It's been good for us.

It's been good for the artists and it's been good for our community.

- What are some of the themes that, for example, in the pieces of public art, you have sculpture around, for example, shad run that's along the river, that would be an environmental theme.

Are there various themes in some of those public pieces of public sculpture, for example?

- There are, shad run obviously is pretty self-explanatory because we do have a shad run up the river.

And that used to be right at the, where you came across the bridge.

It was moved when the little league pieces sculptures were installed, and so shad run was then moved, and we have it in what we call Market Square now, which is where a lot of people congregate.

So that's kind of a good thing.

We have germination, Roger Shipley did germination and that was a piece, you know, talking about where we've come from and where we're going.

And we have, David Stabley did a piece mosaic mural on a building at the beginning of what we call Avenue of the Arts.

It was pegged Avenue of the Arts during the governor's ball in 2008 that we held here.

And so that depicts all the different arts, and it's in a mosaic that's actually installed into the brick of a building, which is very cool.

So, yeah, they tell stories.

They do.

- They do.

And the idea of a vision then.

At a key point, like 65 years, you say, "Well, we'll work on a pocket park, we'll have plans for other things."

What's in your vision for the short term, perhaps, Debi?

- So for outdoor art, yeah, the pocket park has been a couple years in the making.

And part of that is there's a community garden, and then the pocket park is part of, it's right outside the hospital.

So it's meant to give kinda solace to people who might be going through difficult times there, gives them a place to go and be peaceful and kind of regroup.

And in addition to then, you know, right with the community garden, with, you know, the excitement that goes on there with the kids and stuff.

Seeing things grow and going in and being allowed to tend things.

You know, that that's kind of a fun, interactive experience for everyone.

And a needed experience as far as the pocket garden goes.

We have, you know, I know you've talked to Corey, so, you know, we have film festivals coming up.

We work with Bucknell and do a firefly event every summer, because locally, we're one of the last places in the country that still get fireflies.

A lot of people don't recognize that, but light pollution is a real thing and fireflies are gonna go away.

So we try to educate and include kids, and there's movies and, you know, there's all kinds of stuff to, you know, just kinda educate about the fireflies.

We also, what else do we have come?

Oh, we have a storytellers festival.

So for authors and illustrators and just, you know, people that are carrying us over, you know, when you're hanging out at night and you can't sleep, you need a book.

So we have storytellers, the second annual storytellers is coming up.

So we're out there in many forms, I would say - Congratulations then on that, and we'll send people to your website so they can find out the array of things that are available.

- That's great.

Thank you.

- Again, Bravo on that.

And welcome, Leslie.