The City of Selma’s Ward 4 is spreading the Christmas cheer to the families that will be spending their holiday season in the hospital caring for their newborn children.

The Youth and Families and the Senior Care Committee of Ward 4 is adopting a nursery floor at the Vaughn Regional Medical Center to make sure that the families with a baby in the hospital will still have a cheerful holiday season despite any difficult circumstances they may be facing. From Dec. 22 to Dec. 28, the groups will be decorating small hospital rooms, giving presents to the babies, volunteering to run errands and donating money to the families with children receiving hospital care as a part of their first Adopt-a-Floor holiday event.

“I just hope that this will be an ongoing thing during the Christmas season,” Selma Councilwoman Angela Benjamin said. “We have to remember that not everyone is at home for Christmas or able to be at home for Christmas and enjoy the things that some of us who will be at home are enjoying.”

Not only will the organizations be working hard to do their part, but they are asking that the community participate also. There are three ways that the public can get involved.

First off, people can take a shift to volunteer at the hospital.  From Dec. 22 to 28, volunteers will run quick errands for parents who can’t leave the hospital. Those errands will include buying families a beverage or lunch and talking to parents who need some companionship.  They will also be asked to help decorate a small hospital room for them.

People can also help by donating coins to the families of the babies on the floor.

“You will be amazed of how people will dig into their pockets and pull out nothing but lint when all we have to eat are vending machine products or coffee or cafeteria from downstairs. You run out of coins pretty quickly for the machine,” Benjamin said. “This is for mommy and daddy to kind of relieve them of trying to find dimes, nickels and quarters at the bottom or their purse or wallet.”

Anyone that wants to give coins to the family should take coins to the Office of the Selma City Council by Dec. 17.

Another way that the community can help is to purchase a gift for a newborn baby.

“It can be for a baby boy or a baby girl,” Benjamin said. “We want every baby born that week to have something from the citizens of Selma.”

People interested in donating a gift should take them to the Office of the Selma City Council no later than Dec. 16 with gift paper or bags included. The nursery floor director also ask that participants donate stocking, so that each day baby’s are born the babies can take pictures in the stocking.

“I hope that the participants want to do it again, even if we don’t adopt a baby floor next year,” Benjamin said. “Maybe it’s another floor we adopt.”

For more information, please contact the Office of Selma City Council at 334-874-1234.