FARMINGTON – The Fairbanks School Neighborhood Association has started selling bricks to fund completion of the exterior of the building, said Patty Jacobs on Tuesday.

The group is attempting to recreate the exterior as it was originally, with a brick cover over the foundation up to the vinyl siding, she said.

Bricks can be purchased for $5 to honor someone or as a memorial. Names of buyers or those they honor will be placed on a plaque and displayed in the lobby, Jacobs said.

The school, completed in 1898, burned 100 years later. The association plans to construct the new meeting house as closely in style and substance to the old building as possible. They plan an opening this spring.

At a previous association meeting, member Dennis Pike recalled a story he had heard a child where bricks were sold in the early-to-mid 1920s at 25 cents each for the old Franklin Memorial Hospital building, now Sunny Hill Apartments on Fairbanks Road.

Other organizations have held brick fundraising sales including for the rebuilding of Henderson Memorial Baptist Church in Farmington after it burned in the late 1930s. Bricks were sold for 10 cents a piece or so many for a dollar, said Edith McCleery, who remembers selling the bricks as a teenager.

Over the past 10 years, the Fairbanks Association developed a variety of fundraisers to complete work, which Jacobs estimates will cost between $300,000 and $500,000.

A silent auction is also planned for March 15, she said. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., shoppers may browse items at Fairbanks Union Church then write down how much they would be willing to pay for the item. The silent auction will feature everything from antiques and collectibles to new items and books.

Anyone who would like to purchase a brick may send a check made out to FSNA to Mary O’Donal at 201 Barlen St., Farmington, ME 04938. Include the name(s) of those to be honored or remembered, she said. For more information, call Jacobs at 778-4272 or Dory Dickman at 778-0517.