ALEXANDRIA — The city pool might not close after all.

Alexandria Mayor Jack Woods recently agreed to keep the pool at Beulah Park open this summer if area residents can raise $50,000 to install a new liner.

Woods said the current pool base is concrete and is constantly leaking water, which increases the city’s water bill.

The city will pay for maintenance and repairs to the pool base.

The new liner, he said, will drastically reduce the cost to operate the pool. Instead of a standard operating cost of $70,000 annually, the city might pay $35,000 per year, he said.

The city still won’t make a profit. “We won’t be losing as much,” Woods said.

Alexandria residents Sherri Brown, Vanessa Hosier and Penny Stevens decided a few weeks to try and save the pool, or save the summer, as they now say.

The “pool ladies,” as they are now known around town, rallied community members to pitch in, hoping to raise enough money to open the pool.

So far, according to Hosier, they’ve raised only $500 but have committed to raise the funds by the end of April.

Hosier said the pool ladies are excited about the city’s support and have no doubt that the money will be raised.

The $50,000 liner would be less that the $85,000 the women thought they’d have to raise.

At the intermediate school, she said, students have begun donating to the pool cause on Fridays by paying $1 to wear flip-flops and other various silly drives.

Last week, the flip-flop drive raised $164.

More than 60 donation cans have been placed throughout town to help raise funds, Hosier said.

In addition to the drives and fund-raisers already in place, Hosier said Gloria Gaither is paying for and ordering banks to be distributed throughout the schools. Children will be asked to drop their pennies and allowance into the banks and return them to the school when full.

The big fund-raiser will occur on March 8 when the pool ladies are joined by pool supporters as they walk across town in their swimsuits to raise money.

The Swimsuit Stroll, Hosier said, will begin at 2 p.m. at the Alexandria Community Center and will wind through town before stopping at the pool, where paraders will be asked to toss money into the pool.

It’s a swimsuit stroll, and not a jog or run, she said, “because we’re ladies in our 50’s” Hosier laughed.

The mayor accidentally supported the parade without fully understanding it, he admitted on Wednesday.

When the pool ladies brought the idea to him, Woods said he didn’t realize it was an actual parade request to walk across town in swimsuits and throw money into the pool. “I thought they were joking about that.”

Regardless of his initial reaction, Woods said he supports the parade, but might not don a swimsuit to march along with the ladies.

Those who want to participate in the parade, she said, can simply pin a swimsuit to their clothing or wear one over pants and warm shirts. Participants need not endure freezing temperatures in beach wear.

Hosier said she is confident that the $50,000 will be raised, despite troubled economic times, because those being asked to donate live in Alexandria.

In 2008, Alexandria residents pitched in thousands to support the Harrison Street Tree Project and to help the police department purchase a drug dog.

In Alexandria, she said, people come together for a cause. “It’s something that makes me just so proud to be part of this community. It’s almost like a huge family of sorts.”

The pool may not seem like an essential part of the city, she said, but in Alexandria, it’s tradition. “For us, this pool closing is a tragedy. A lot of communities give up on things, and you don’t find that here.”

The city, she said, may have needed the mayor’s dire warning about the pool’s future. It taught residents a lesson, she said. “ In some ways, I think our town needed a shove in the arm. We either take care of each other or we’re going to lose a lot of things.”