Tuesday July 8th, 2008 - 9:01AM

The long-awaited window signs to go up in the downtown district will arrive for distribution this Thursday, July 10. Ellen C. Hoefer, secretary/treasurer of the Friends Board of Trustees offered her branch of Peoples First Community Bank located on the corner of Garden and Tarragona to Friends to use as a pick-up and coordinating site for our project this week.

We will have 1,000 17" x 17" full-color posters at the branch at 9 AM, this Thursday, July 10. We'd like to ask that if you can come by anytime between 9 AM and 4 PM, you come to the branch and gather up some for walking around downtown and asking merchants and offices to support the Community Maritime Park project by putting a sign up in their windows. As people come in to pick up signs, we'll have a map at the bank for marking off the areas where others say they will walk so we don't waste your time or energy on going places that others already canvassed.

We will also have a staple gun for posting signs on the plywood surrounding some of the construction sites downtown. We've already asked for permission to put the signs up, so we ask that no volunteers put any up without making sure the property owner agrees to allow the Friends Community Maritime Park sign to go up on the plywood boarding.

If Thursday doesn't work for you, then we will leave some of the remaining signs at the branch for you to pick up and place in other areas of town, in case you want to take the initiative to go to other shopping centers and office strips or parks and ask if the owner wants to post a sign in their window. We also ask that you consider going to fast food outlets, grocery stores, convenience stores, and other high-traffic locations that will get attention for the park's support.

We will also have a supply of signs at CyberSmart Computers, located at 945-4C West Michigan Avenue. Call the store at 479-0777 between 10 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Wednesday, and on Friday. On Thursday, the store closes as part of the Andrew Jackson Foundation's Project Green Day, a program to encourage businesses to adopt a 4-day work week to save energy and thus promote America's energy independence.

If you want to put a sign up in your vehicle window, please do so - a moving sign is a well-read sign!

As for placing them in your yard of other open locations, we are contracting with a screen printer to produce 500 signs shaped like the ones we used during the referendum campaign. Please wait for these corrugated plastic signs to arrive in about 2 weeks because the posters we put up Thursday are not made for exposure to the outdoor weather.

We want to thank Bodree Printing for giving Friends a great, non-profit organization price on the printing. Sales representative Flay LeVie did great handling all the paperwork and printing production; owner Gay Bodree made sure her company got them out on time for this week's event! We can certainly recommend Bodree Printing to anyone who wants to support a company that is supporting the CMP - call them at 455-8511 to get a quote from either Flay or Gay. Let them know your Friends sent you to them!