It is an admirable, timely and responsible thing to do, planning the future — especially when that future involves tens of thousands of people. On May 25, a draft presentation was presented to the community updating the progress of the Athens 2040 comprehensive plan.

Among other things, that plan is a forecast of what ongoing areas the city needs to address to achieve sustainable growth during the next two decades (or, to be a bit more broad, from the plan itself, “to establish a collective vision for our community and aims to achieve that vision by plotting courses of action in line with the vision”).

Along this vein, we want to publicly show our admiration for the forward thinking of a group of youths similarly tasked with not only helping to plan our community’s future, but writing the checks they one day will have to cash.

A snapshot of the recent work of the Athens Mayor’s Youth Commission in allocating more than $7,000 in grant funding shows us two things. One, it shows a glimpse of future needs. But two, it shows those needs as addressed by those who will be the movers and shakers of that future.

Gifting grant funds to organizations such as the hospital foundation, Learn-to-read, Make A Way, Athens Family Resource Center, Athens Main Street, hospice, the library, veterans museum and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday essay/art contest tells us much. Such a list indicates that our future concerns of health care, education, housing, military and societal tolerance are in good hands.

It could be argued that the commission had only $7,000 to allocate, and that that amount of funding spread wide does not reach deep. But to that, we are reminded of the verse, “whoever can be trusted with small things can also be trusted with big things.”

We trust our future is heading in the right direction.