As a group of about 30 Hampton Roads students and community leaders, including seven high school and college students from Suffolk, toured the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Norfolk regional office this week, there were a couple of important lessons imparted along the way. Among them: The FBI is one federal agency whose influence has tangible local effects, and the bureau needs a good relationship with the community.

Officials with the FBI set up the community outreach program to help improve the agency’s reputation in the community — especially among the younger generation — and to encourage community support for its work. Through the community outreach program, FBI officials attempt to educate the populace on what the FBI does, what kind of training its members go through and how ordinary citizens can help the agency accomplish its mission.

Upon completing the tour and orientation program, one local student said Thursday that her eyes had been opened to the real work of the bureau. “I’ve learned they’re not as sneaky as everybody thinks they are,” said Shannon Greene, a senior at Lakeland High School.

And that’s just the type of connection that leaders inside the FBI are hoping to make with the community outreach programs. A young person who had come to the facility with a negative impression in mind about the FBI left with a positive one and the potential to share that new impression with her peers. If she does so, she will improve the chances that FBI agents can count on Greene or her friends for help, not evasion, in the future.

Some of the students are even freshly interested in FBI careers following the program. In a world in which the steep price of domestic and international terrorism is impossible to ignore, it’s important for the FBI to do whatever it can to entice smart, responsible young adults into federal law enforcement careers. And it’s never too early to plant the seeds that could one day grow into a true interest in that field of work.