Jerria Martin will be filling in as the executive director of Main Street Selma the next few months.

Martin will follow in the footsteps of Shebra Kidd, who will step down after a long tenure guiding the organization, which used to be called the Downtown Selma Association.

Martin runs Circle of Hope Ministries and teaches at Wallace Community College Selma.

Martin unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Selma this year and is a graduate of Stillman College and Princeton Theological Seminary. She has lived in Selma her entire life except while she was away for school.

Martin said she was looking forward to filling in as interim executive director and helping Main Street in any way possible the next few months.

“The main thing is filling in that gap with Shebra retiring and the new person brought in,” Martin said.

She said Main Street has a strong board led by president Clay Carmichael.

“The good thing is we have such an awesome board. My job is to implement the programming they have, to help them with marketing and to basically be icing on the cake,” Martin said.

Main Street Selma is planning several events over the next few weeks, including a Downtown After Dark event on Oct. 13 and a Halloween party on Oct. 29.

Main Street has also teamed up with artist Charlie Lucas for a social media campaign around Jeffery the Ghost, which kicks off next week.

Carmichael said Martin’s name came up often as the board was looking for an interim director.

The Alabama Main Street program requires all affiliates to have a full-time executive director.

Applications for a permanent executive director will be accepted between now and Nov. 15.

Main Street Selma has an office at Selma City Hall and can be reached by calling 874-2169.