PRINCETON — The newly-formed Interact Club at Princeton High School will host a furniture sale fundraiser at the former Centrue Bank building on South Main Street this weekend to raise seed money for future service projects.
The sale will be on Saturday, April 10, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, April 11, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
The PHS Interact Club is made up of 20 PHS students, ranging from freshmen to seniors, and is Princeton Rotary Club’s youth program. The club was formed just this past year.
Michael Stutzke of Princeton, who is a member of Princeton Rotary, bought the former bank building on Dec. 31, 2020. He had hoped to turn it into an upscale restaurant, but with the hardships of the pandemic, those plans most likely will fall through. Plans or no plans, one thing was for sure — Stutzke and his family had no use for all the old office furniture that came with the building purchase. So he decided to donate all the furniture to the Interact Club to sell for seed money.
Stutzke also knew putting the students in charge of the fundraiser would be a great learning experience. The students have organized the sale, priced the items themselves, cleaned the items and will run the sale this weekend. Rotarians will also be there to assist.
The furniture items range from office chairs, desks, filing cabinets, end tables, lobby couches and more. Prices of the items just may surprise shoppers. Stutzke said some items, like desks with attached cabinetry you wouldn’t find cheaper than $2,000 are priced around the $200 mark, just as one example.
Once the furniture is out of the building, plans will continue to be discussed as to what to do with the 100-year-old building. Stutzke is turning part of the upstairs of the current law office and empty business space into apartments that are expected to be completed by June. He is thinking of turning the upstairs location over the bank lobby into apartments or he said it would make a perfect space for public gatherings with its wide-open window views and perfect location right on Main Street.