The city of Selma held its annual youth job lottery drawing Wednesday night at the Carl C. Morgan Convention Center.

The lottery is always one of the highlights of the spring, as youth from ages 15 to 22, are picked at random for a variety of summer jobs throughout the city. The lottery awarded jobs to around 150 youth, who will be interviewed within the next two weeks and then will be divided up into their jobs for four-week segments.

Areas of employment this year include the mayor’s office, the city council office, the police department, the planning and development office and the Selma-Dallas County Library.

The program not only gives youth something to do during the summer and provides many of them with their first ever job experience, but it also brings them closer to those that run our city.

Youth will get a chance to work in one of the city’s departments and learn more about the day-to-day operations that take part.

Like city leaders, we wish more of the 400 applicants for this year’s lottery could be hired, but understand the budgeting limitations of taking on hundreds of youth during the summer, even at minimum wage.

Still, the lottery has been a success in recent years. It has given youth a productive way to spent 64 hours of their summer break and allows them to earn paychecks without overly demanding hours or responsibilities.

The city deserves a lot of credit for keeping the job program going through the years. The numbers participating and the number of jobs available has fluctuated through the years based on the economy and the ability of local businesses to give back, but year after year the program continues to give hands-on work experience to those that get selected.