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Several organizations in the community were in the gift giving spirit just two days before Christmas, giving families within the community toys in honor of the holiday season. 

Starting with Selma City Council President Warren Young, there was a toy drive at The First Baptist Church, located on 709 Martin Luther King St., Monday for those in the community who wanted to come out, enjoy the festivities provided by the council and grab a toy for their child in honor of the Christmas holiday. 

Toys, big and small were given out at the event to families in the community with children from newborn age to 12 years old. 

“We are here for our fourth annual Joy jubilee,” Young said. “The Joy Jubilee consists of us every year giving out toys to as many kids as we possibly can serve, and we also give them hot food. This year’s menu consisted of hamburgers, hot dogs, wings, French fries and baked beans including a bottle of water for them to drink.”

They even had a “Grinchmas Village” decorated in a Grinch like theme for the kids of the community to sit down and get their face painted, and one girl, Ava Mitchell, was persistent in the efforts of getting her face painted because she said she missed the festive event at her school.

“It was awesome,” Mitchell said. “I had fun and I just spent my time.”

Mitchell said she is grateful for her painted snowflake and said it was pretty and she loved the colors. 

Like Mitchell, Young said he is grateful for the event’s turnout and said he is grateful to God that so many people come out despite the weather for the event being cold.

“I was kind of concerned,” Young said. “Well, maybe it’s too cold and people are not going to come out this year. But thankfully, all the people are here in mass, both in line and in cars and I am so grateful to see this many members of the community and I feel like when we do events like this, it builds the Selma family.”

Young said Selma is not big as it used to be and he said he feels like it’s less of us and like any other family, we have to become tighter with one another and I’m hoping that events like this draw us in and make us closer. 

Young said he thanks the donors of the event that contributed as well, from the members of The First Baptist Church, the 100 Black Men Inc. organization, Selma Links Inc., the brothers of The Alpha Phi Alpha, the BlackBelt alphas and the Selma-Dallas County Library alongside the Selma City Council. Young said those who are interested in being a part of the festive event next year, can contact him directly through social media. 

Like Young and the Selma City Council, Selma Housing Authority along with its Chief Operating Officer Cicely Curtis partnered together in the communities of GWC Monday to go door-to- door surprising families with gifts for the holiday season. 

“We have our property managers including all the staff from the Selma Housing Authority partnering together and we are having our annual toy drive,” Curtis said. We are going door to door to all our developments GWC, Felix heights, Rangedale and Valley Creek to give our families, our children Christmas toys and gifts, something they can look forward to during the holiday season.”

As a collective team, all members of SHA said they were grateful to be a part of the event and give back to those who are in need.

“It’s joy, unspeakable joy that I feel regarding this event,” Curtis said. “It’s a blessing to be able to give and bless the families of the community and I’m so glad to be a part of an agency that believes in giving to families but that’s what this season is about. God gave his greatest gift, Jesus to us and so we have to be the hands and the feet of Jesus and the vessels of him that go back and give. It’s just so joyful and rewarding.”

Not only did the SHA give back to the kids within the community, they also made a dedicated effort as well to give back to those within the authority who made a difference throughout the year.

“We had our evening of Christmas Elegance, which is our annual Christmas Party where we show appreciation to not only faculty, because we gave employee recognitions, gave awards to our employees, several different awards, honoring them throughout the year. 

Curtis said she is just proud of the team’s dedicated efforts and said next year, they plan to do the toy drive again.