More than 400 area youth have put their name in the hat for one of the jobs that are part of the Summer Youth Employment Program for the city of Selma. After the lottery drawing this evening at the Carl C. Morgan Convention Center, half of those who applied will leave disappointed.

During Tuesday’s meeting of the Selma City Council, Mayor George Evans said the city had raised enough funds to hire 220 youth to the program; an increase over the previous years but far less than he had hoped.

“I wish we had the money to hire each and every one of the applicants, but we can only do with what we have,” Evans said. “But, by switching the way we do things this year, we can hire more this year than we had first thought.”

Instead of operating the program in one shift, the city this year will look to hire two shifts of youth to work a shorter, four-week schedule. This gives the city the flexibility to hire twice the number of workers for the same amount of money.

“It’s always an exciting time and the youth that we have had in the past have been fantastic,” Ward 4 city councilmember Angela Benjamin said. “It’s also a really tough day. There are going to be a lot of tears and a lot of people leaving disappointed that their name wasn’t called.”

The lottery drawing will be held Wednesday at 5 p.m. at the Convention Center. Applicants must be in attendance in the event their name is called. If a name is called and that person is not in attendance, their name will be discarded and another name will be drawn.

“It happens every year where we draw a name and the person isn’t there,” Evans said. “Everyone who applied needs to make sure they are there Wednesday evening.”

The city budgeted $75,000 to the employment program with the rest of the funds coming from other agencies and businesses. The cost to hire one employee for the two, four-week sessions is $750.

“If there is someone out there — some business — who wants to help, we can likely hire more by the time the second four-week shift starts,” Evans said. “It’s not too late to contribute.”