Staff report

Angela Benjamin has announced her candidacy for Selma City Council Ward 4.

The Selma native, formerly Angela Holt, has resided and raised her children in Ward 4 for 12 years. She is a Selma High School alumna.

She believes that &8220;if it is needed but does not exist, then we must create it.&8221;

If elected to the city council, Benjamin&8217;s goals are to provide safer communities, cleaner neighborhoods, excellent schools, continuous communication and strong businesses.

Benjamin is very active in the community. She has served in such capacities as Girl Scout Troop Leader No. 346, founded Club Charity, a youth community help group. The club has served the elderly, the young and citizens in need.

They held one of Selma&8217;s first Coats for Kid at Wallace Community College Selma, collecting gently worn and new coats from the community and distributing them to those in need.

The coats were an entry &8220;fee&8221; to the gospel concert Club Charity sponsored.

She helped to coordinate &8220;Dare to Be Different,&8221; an annual 3-day conference where young people of all ages from across the Southeast United States would come together in Selma to share in their experiences as Christians and to create new ones.

Benjamin is an Alabama State University alumna. She also received her Master of Social Work from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. She holds a bachelor&8217;s degree in social work from Alabama State University in Montgomery and an associate&8217;s degree in science from Wallace Community College Selma.

She has worked as a volunteer and substituted at Clark Elementary School.

One of her favorite quotes is taken from Albert Einstein:

&8220;A hundred times each day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the measure as I have received and am still receiving.&8221;