SHINING THE LIGHT ON SELMA AND DALLAS COUNTY, ALABAMA
www.selmasun.com
April 16, 2020 | Volume 7 Issue 16
75 ¢
Selma Dallas County Food Bank set to move into larger facility at Craig Field Industrial Park BY TODD PRATER
Selma Sun Staff The Selma Dallas County Food Bank is moving to a new facility at the Craig Field Industrial Park this spring. Executive Director Jeff Harrison said they have run out of room at the current Oak Street facility, so the Food Bank will move to a much larger facility at 101 Avenue C at the Craig Field Industrial Park by the end of May. Harrison said the new building will provide more than double the amount of space. In the new facility “we’ve been able to triple or quadruple the freezer and cooler space,” Harrison said. He said a loading dock is another big plus at the new building. The larger facility will allow the Food Bank to accept more donations. Harrison said a company in the Auburn/Opelika area recently offered to donate 112,000 pounds of hamburger meat, but Harrison had to turn it
down because there wasn’t room in the current building to store it. Harrison said the food bank serves Dallas, Perry, Wilcox and Marengo counties. “A food bank is responsible for securing the food, like the company that had the 112,000 pounds of hamburger they needed to get rid of because the supply chain has been interrupted by the pandemic,” Harrison said. “We go out and seek those opportunities. We go get it, and we store it. Then we distribute it to the food pantries, which are our agencies.” The food pantries distribute the food “to the end user, the people who need it,” Harrison said. The Coronavirus pandemic has had an effect on the Food Bank, but it has not been totally negative. Harrison said in order to practice social distancing, the agencies that use the Food Bank’s services no longer come in and shop like in a grocery store. They now
Jeff Harrison Food Bank Executive Director outside the current location on Oak Street. go to the Food Bank website, pick what they need and call to place their order. Volunteers at the Food Bank gather up the food and have it packaged and ready for pick up. Not having the contact has “made us way more efficient,” Harrison said. “Of course, we don’t get to visit with them and socialize when them, but
we have been able to get more food out there because we are so much more streamlined.” Harrison said once the COVID-19 situation passes, the Food Bank will keep some of the new ways. “Some of the agencies like the new system because it saves so much time,” he said. But he said it’s still important for the Food
The new facility is located at the Craig Field Industrial Park. Bank staff to hear stories about where the food is going and the people these agencies are helping. For the past three years, the first weekend of April has been reserved for the Food Bank Bass Tournament at Roland Cooper State Park. This highly successful and much-anticipated fund raiser
for the Food Bank is spearheaded by Harrison’s son Jeb Harrison. After seeking advice from experts, including local expert James “Big Daddy” Lawler, the Harrisons decided to cancel the tournament this year. Harrison said the tournament will be held next year during the first weekend of April.
Selma leaders sound off on COVID-19 efforts The Selma Sun and Kix 101.5 FM have interviewed many Selma and Dallas County officials during our Sunrise Over Selma Show on Wednesday mornings about how they and their agencies are coping with the COVID-19 epidemic. Here is a sample of their comments. Tune in to the “Sun Spot” segment every Wednesday from 7 to 8 a.m.
miss seeing their smiling faces every day. And the scholars won’t admit it, but they miss us too. Encourage our scholars to read every day. Do it to improve vocabulary and help ensure they are ready when we do return. Thank families and community for the support they provide. We are providing meals; churches and others are pitching in to help our families at this time, and we appreciate that.
down. We’re not allowed do lot of procedures. It’s been tough to get people their hours. The staff is handling it well. I’ve been very impressed. Average in our company, 90 hospitals across the country, in our ICUs, we’re at less than 50% capacity. That means there is capacity if this surge does hit. We just hope it doesn’t happen. There’s plenty of information on our website, www. vaughanregional.com. Stay home if you can. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Everything will be alright.
to lose funding and possibly a Congressional seat. So it’s very important. If you’ve got that form sitting around, please take time to fill it out and put it back in the mail.
Rep. Terri Sewell, U.S. Congresswoman from Selma Avis Williams, Superintendent of Selma City Schools We encouraged parents to pick up ... workbooks from school. In addition, (we have) writing prompts and reading recommendations as far as making sure scholars read on a daily basis. As to how do parents contact their kid's teacher: We have lots of schools with an active social media pres ence. Some teachers are active in engaging on Facebook. Some parents don’t have access to the Internet. And so we cannot use that a method to reach 100 per cent of our scholars. I know it’s a stressful time for everybody. Parents can reach out to their principal or teacher if they have questions or need support. Especially for families with multiple children. It’s more than a notion to keep those babies engaged. Especially if the family has to go to work or work at home at some time. I have appreciation for having assignments. For families, it’s still a stressful time. This is a very odd time. l
David McCormack, CEO of Vaughan Sheryl Smedley, Regional Medical Center President of the Selma The hospital is prepared. Dallas County Chamber We have the supplies we need. We’re part of a large corpo- of Commerce ration, and we were on top of this early. We’re not feeling the effects of it. If it does come, we’re ready for that. “I’m impressed how people have handled the situation. Our staff has really done a great job. I know people are a little on edge … but everybody is still working hard. We deal with a lot of sick people anyway.” As for the personal protection equipment: “We’re wearing it appropriately and not wasting it. We’re getting what we need. If crisis happened, it would be very, very difficult, but fortunately we’re not in that crisis situation. We’ve ben able to use equipment like we’re supposed to. We are using more because we are wearing masks and gowns. Fortunately, at Vaughan we’re able to get what we need.” Morale (of staff) is good. Unfortunately, volumes are
“Our lodging right now is tight. As you know, there’s a project going on at International Paper with 3,000 workers out there right now the new expansion of a machine out there, so our lodging is full at this time. Even our Airbnbs are doing well.” This week the governor released a website called AllTogether.org, and it’s very simple to use, and it’s asking if you need help or you can help. I want to also remind everybody about the U.S. census. It’s very important that everyone take a few minutes. It’s got 10 quick questions, and it takes no more than six minutes to fill out the form. They were mailed in March, so you should have gotten your U.S. Census form in the mail, and we’re just encouraging everyone to fill that out, because the count is coming in very low, and we’re going
We live in extraordinary times and these extraordinary times required an extraordinary federal response, and so I was fighting hard in that $2.2 trillion stimulus package that we not only helped a big airline industry bailing them out on Main Street our momand-pop businesses, our beauty shops, barber shops. And I want to make sure that those resources are distributed to our communities. So I really hope that people will apply. … Resource check will be delivered at the end or the middle of April, around the week of April 15, and the IRS is saying that they will deliver those checks to direct deposit, so if you have filed your income tax and you have on file a direct deposit information with the IRS you will probably be in the first wave of direct payments. The direct payments of $1,200 is a maximum if you make an income under $75,000 a year. There’s also a $500 additional for every minor child. And so this is real money, and we want to put in the hands of real Americans, and we’re going to try to do that. Stay-at-home orders are real, and as I’ve been watching and I’ve been getting these reports from Alabama, we’re
seeing that a disproportionate amount of those who are getting the virus and dying from the virus are people of the African-American community. So I say for the folks in the Black Belt and who can hear my voice, if you can stay at home, stay at home. We’ve got to get the young people to realize that they can be asymptomatic not carrying any symptoms and still be spreading (the virus) back home to their parents and their grandparents. And so this is a serious matter, and you can see that people are dying from this virus. I’ve talked to several of my colleagues in New York City and the state of Washington and California. They’re experiencing this far worse than we are in Alabama, but they’re the ones right now who are trying to do all that they can to lighten that curve. And we will experience it in Alabama, and whether or not our peak will be bad or not depends upon what we’re doing right now.
dents that we serve in our area. We have a site at Brantley Elementary, which is a graband-go, but we also deliver foods to some of our students who can’t get there. And in the southern and the Western zone at Keith High School. The same group has been there ever since the first week we were out, and they’ve been serving about 82 children, but we do have bus drivers that said if we have students who are being missed we will come and deliver to them with the understanding that we’re going to keep our distance.
Darrio Melton, Mayor of Selma
Hattie Shelton, Superintendent of Dallas County Schools We’re doing grab and go (meals for students), and we deliver. We have some parents who can come in and pick up, so we have two sites that are preparing the meals, but we’re delivering in every zone where the students that we have been informed need a meal currently. We’ve been serving about 300 meals a day for the stu-
“This is deadly serious. Numbers are rising in the U.S. In Selma, we’re doing what we can to stop the rise. There is a quarantine in place, we shut down city buildings and city parks. The police department has authority to cite people. People can be fined up to $500 and 180 days in jail. Politicians out there are shameful, instead of working together, sewing discord inside city of Selma. My hope and prayer that people don’t listen to such ignorance. Our emphasis is on saving lives in the city, and again, no one has to go outside their house. Put in force so we can enforce. People can choose for themselves if they want to violate and reap the consequences of it. If you know someone who has a communicable disease, someone brazen enough (to act) against policies, my prayers and thoughts are with them.”
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