The Carbon County Council of Governments recently held its first equipment auction at the East Penn Township Municipal building to raise funds for day-to-day operations.

Established in early 2016 between 18 municipalities, the COG was created in order to improve communication, share resources and apply for grant dollars that would benefit all the municipalities within the county."In just a short period of time the CCCOG has taken the initiative to raise revenue to save our municipalities money through their cooperative efforts," said state Sen. John Yudichak, D-Luzerne/Carbon."The CCCOG has gone from concept to an organization that is driven toward making each municipality in Carbon County a better place to live for its residents."The premise for the auction was borrowed from the Mountain Council of Governments located in the Hazleton area.East Penn Township Supervisors' Chairman William Schwab shared that the event was a surprising financial success, especially because it was the first auction."We came away from the auction really happy and the money we raised definitely gives us some breathing room," Schwab said."Our municipalities were able to get rid of some of their surplus, which in most cases was just going to go to waste. Now, we don't have to depend on our member municipalities to fund our everyday costs, which was one of our goals from the onset."The auction grossed $42,039.50, which raised $6,305.92 for the organization."We're really excited about the direction the CCCOG is going in," said CCCOG President Kris Hoffner."We have a dedicated group of individuals and elected officials at both the county and state level that have helped get this organization off the ground and running. Now that we have some money in the bank, I believe our potential is limitless."