This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
09/28/2016 08:30 AMOwning a home is one thing; owning an entire street is something else entirely, but that’s just what the Essex Community Fund (ECF) is making possible—in one sense at least. The community fund is holding an Internet auction of Essex street signs on eBay. The proceeds will benefit the many local organizations that ECF supports.
Community Fund president Jean Schneider has been working on plans for the auction since last spring. She credits the Community Fund’s summer intern, Menalie Hyde, with the computer expertise to help organize the sale.
The street signs became available because the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) issued new rules for municipalities requiring larger streets signs with reflectivity to make them visible at night and in challenging weather.
Even without an auction, Essex First Selectman Norman Needleman said that there is one street sign that the town has had to replace regularly over the years, even before federal regulations mandated the change: High Street.
“I think every generation has stolen that one,” he says.
According to Jean, there are some 150 signs that will be part of the auction. Some are duplicates, including five copies of the much-in- demand High Street. Signs starting with letters from A to M will be auctioned on eBay from Oct. 3 to 13 (there was an earlier auction for letters A to E in which bidders bought some 18 signs, but all those A to E signs not sold have been rolled over into the Oct. 3 to 13 auction). The final auction, for letters from N to W will take place on eBay from Nov. 5 to 15. Bids for the signs start at $50.
Jean thinks popular signs will fall into several categories.
“Streets that have children’s or grandchildren’s names, anything nautical, and streets like Comstock Avenue named for families that still live in town,” she says.
The condition of the signs varies.
“Most are in pretty good shape,” she says. “Some people want bright and shiny ones; some people want signs with a bit of character.”
At present, according to Jean, the signs are safely sequestered so none disappear before auction time.
As soon as the sign replacement began, Needleman says residents began to contact him about getting one of the old signs. Dave Caroline, head of the town’s Public Works Department, confirms that residents were asking for the old signs even as the town crew took them down. Needleman, with the agreement of the Board of Selectmen, suggested the idea of auctioning off the street signs to raise money for a local non-profit organization.
“The community fund was ideal. You can find virtue in every non-profit, but the community fund raises money for many different organizations in Essex; it benefits the whole community,” he explains.
Every year, Jean says, ECF gives between $40,000 and $50,000 to some 30 local organizations including the Hope is Power Cancer Survivors Program at the Valley Shore Y, Tri-Town Youth Services, the fuel assistance program, and the Shoreline Soup Kitchen.
“People don’t realize how many people use the food pantry,” Jean says of the soup kitchen.
She points out that two years ago ECF started the summer lunch program for students who qualified for reduced price school lunches during the year so their source of nutritious meals would not be cut off over vacation. This past summer the program, including both breakfast and lunch, was taken over by Regional District Four, with numbers reaching some 100 children.
ECF has also set up discussions on a wider recognition of mental health issues in this area and is currently focusing on ways to provide assistance to local senior citizens. Jean says the group wants to learn more about a program used in other communities for possible adoption here in which all a senior citizen’s vital medical information is put in a cylinder attached by Velcro to the refrigerator. Then, Jean points out, emergency services always knows where to find the information if they are called to the home. ECF is also trying to organize a foster program for pets if their owners are hospitalized.
Jean learned about ECF from past president Jacqueline Doane.
“She was just so enthusiastic about the organization,” Jean recalls. “I came to a meeting, heard what they did and wanted to get involved.”
Jean served as secretary and then treasurer before becoming president.
She says that the public speaking part of the position is not something she feels comfortable with but she likes all the administrative work.
“As president, there are a lot of pieces to keep organized. I am a doer, not a speaker,” she says. And she is learning in the president’s job.
“I was always good a delegating and now I am getting even better.”
Jean grew up in Minnesota in a suburb of Minneapolis and met her husband Dean, who grew up in Westbrook, when he was in Minneapolis on business. Dean’s mother Johanna Schneider was the longtime town clerk of Westbrook.
“Everybody there knows her,” Jean says.
She still visits Minnesota, recalling a trip to the Minnesota State Fair where she had a brief encounter with one of Minnesota’s best known exports: Spam, made by the Hormel Company headquartered in Austin, Minnesota. At the fair, the Spam treat was fried Spam on a stick.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Jean says.
For more than 15 years Jean has been the office administrator at Page Taft Real Estate in Essex. Before that she worked for Realtor Sam Strong in Old Lyme, though she took time off between the jobs for her family. Her son William and daughter Megan are now grown.
People have asked Jean why she has never became a real estate broker herself.
“I don’t think I could take the stress, and you are working when most people are off. That’s why they are out looking at real estate,” she says. “I like being supportive. This is a good fit for me and an agent would not meld with my personality.”
As she looks forward to the street sign auctions, Jean knows there is one thing that is beyond her reach: she cannot bid for the sign for her own street in Ivoryton.
“Somebody bought it already,” she explains.
Auction of Essex Street Signs to Benefit the Essex Community Fund at eBay.com. An eBay account is necessary to bid.
Bidding on signs A to M: Oct. 3 to 13.
Bidding on signs N to W: Nov. 5 to 15
Pickup for A to M, Oct. 15 at the Ivoryton Green
Pickup fro N to W, Nov. 15th at the Ivoryton Green
Sign can be shipped for an extra $18.
For more information, visit www.essexcommunityfund.org/auction.