By Sarah Mahan

The Selma Times-Journal

As spring fades into the warmer summer months, elderly citizens will not have to worry about staying cool thanks to members of a local youth organization.

The Selma/Dallas Youth Ambassadors have made it their mission to provide elderly community members with fans to help them beat the heat this summer during their “Be a Fan of the Elderly” project.

“The ambassadors feel great about walking around and delivering the fans, especially when the elderly thank them,” Bennie Ruth Crenshaw, Ward 7 representative on the Selma City Council and the Youth Ambassador’s advisor, said. “They think about their own grandparents having to sit in a house without air [conditioning] and the good they are doing by provide them to someone else’s grandparents.”

Crenshaw said the program was created because many elderly citizens chose to sit in the heat rather than use air conditioning, if they have it, for fear of the high cost of their power bills. “But they will normally turn on a fan because they feel they have more control over it,” she said, making the outreach program a way for the elderly to save money and stay cool.

Although businesses and organizations will occasionally donate money to the program, members of the community have provided most of the fans during the programs seven-year history.

In past years, as many as 80 fans were donated to local elderly citizens each summer, and the ambassadors are hoping to donate more fans to different areas of the community this year.

To donate a fan to the program contact the city council’s office at 874-1234 or Crenshaw at 349-2006.