BERLIN — The Town of Berlin has raised more than $10,000 through an online auction of retired street signs, with proceeds going toward the development of a new community center on Flower Street.
More than 140 signs were sold in the auction, which concluded at noon on Tuesday.
“There were some signs that had 30 bids on them, some just a few,” said Sara Gorfinkel, executive assistant to Berlin’s mayor. “But we sold over 140 street signs to people in Berlin and all across the country.”
According to Gorfinkle, the money will go toward ongoing planning and construction efforts for the community center, a project that has been in development for several years.
“The community center in the town of Berlin has been a dream for decades,” she said. “We’ve been working to consolidate land parcels and to get it up and running. We’ve applied for all different types of grants for it, and just in the last two years, we’ve been able to get community development block grant funding so that we can do feasibility and architecture studies. We now have received funds to demolish the multipurpose building.”
Gorfinkle said the auction was a great opportunity to get residents involved,
“Everybody in this opportunity gets to own their own little piece of Berlin, but the future of Berlin is being built by this project and other projects we’re working on,” she said.