Times-Journal News Editor

A good week for the Selma-Dallas County YMCA just kept getting better as Alabama Power made a $100,000 Founding Donation to the project.

“Alabama Power stepping forward, as strong as they have been in our community, we are lucky to have them,” YMCA CEO Angie Miller said.

Alabama Power’s Billy Atchison made the presentation Thursday evening.

Miller thanked several Alabama Power executives including Margaret Bentley, Gordon Martin from Montgomery, Bill Johnson in Birmingham and Atchison.

“If it wasn’t for Billy (Atchison) pushing it, we certainly would not have been able to do as well as we have,” Miller said. “Alabama Power providing that amount of money is substantial to this area and this project.”

The latest gift brings the YMCA’s new building project to over $2 million in donations despite the fact that the YMCA has not begun seeking anything other than $10,000 and above Founding Donations. The YMCA has not even begun a community campaign.

“We’re being very respectful of the United Way campaign that is going on,” Miller said. “They’ve been kind enough to let us continue to solicit.

This is a once in a lifetime (project), this doesn’t happen everyday.”

And Selma and Dallas County has responded.

With the exception of the promised $500,000 grant pushed through congress by Senator Richard Shelby, all of the money has been raised locally.

“Selma is doing some things that people around the country just can’t believe,” Miller said. “There are so many more great things in store.

I think sometimes we focus too much on what we don’t have as opposed to what we do have.”

What Selma will have at the end of the project is a jewel on Medical Center Parkway.

“There’s some awesome opportunities out there,” Miller said. “We all believe in our product.

It is a great project for people to get behind and support.”

Miller gives much of the credit for the project to board members and the community that has supported the YMCA so far.

“A lot of our board members have served, this has been their wish and desire and dream, the group that has gotten behind it and pushed,” Miller said. “We had faith that the community to get behind it. We really are (doing well). We have really been blessed with all of the support.”