The corner of Selma Avenue and Broad Street was laced with Christmas spirit Wednesday as the Salvation Army convinced the community to fulfill underprivileged children’s Christmas wishes.

The Salvation Army, an organization that serves families in need, was stationed in front of the Selma-Dallas County Public Library Wednesday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. encouraging residents to participate in their Angel Tree program. The program pairs donors with a child from a low-income family to provide Christmas gifts.

“They just need to come down, pick a girl or a boy or as many as they would like,” Salvation Army Major Mary Welch said. “It has their name, their age, sizes and their wish list.”

After the donors have a selected a child, otherwise known as adopting an angel, they shop for whatever the child has put on their wish list and return those items and the wish list to the Salvation Army.

Some of the requests on the children’s list are toys, but others are necessities they are forced to go without because of their circumstance.

“Some of them do have desperate needs,” Welch said. “You can tell by what they put down.”

Those unwilling to shop still have a few other options for ways in which they can provide presents for an angel.

“Some people don’t actually want to do the shopping,” Welch said. “They will give us a check, and we will put angels with them and have someone go shop for them.”

The Salvation Army request that people just would prefer giving money directly to the organization give $60, so they can afford to buy the gifts for the children.

The charity has 590 wish lists to give away. If they are not able to get every angel adopted, people can go to the Selma-Dallas County Public Library, the Salvation Army or Walgreens to adopt an angel.

Welch said it is important that the community contribute to the Angel Tree Program, because the Salvation Army couldn’t raise enough money to fund gifts for the children alone.

“It’s really hard, money wise, to take care of all those kids,” Welch said. “It helps that the public is making it possible to help a whole lot more kids than we could without their help.”

Selma Resident Claude Thompson said that the musicians, who were performing Christmas music on the corner to attract donors, caught his attention and put him in the Christmas spirit to give.

“It’s good to see activity like this in downtown Selma,” he said. “It’s good to see people in downtown Selma taking time to help somebody this Christmas.”