PITTSTON TWP. — Maybe your ideal chair is a comfy recliner, ready to receive your tired body at the end of a long day.

Or maybe you’d prefer a decorative showpiece — too pretty, really, to sit on — like the delicate chair onto which Sue Guzik of the Fly Me Home shop in Pittston attached tiny glass tiles to create a floral mosaic.

“I love flowers, and I definitely wanted it to be bright and colorful,” Guzik said. “I imagine if someone had it in their home, they’d have a colorful personality, so they’d like it, too.”

You’ll have a chance to take home either kind of furniture if you attend “A Chair Affair” at the JA Mericle Family Center for Enterprise Education on Oak Street. The event, set for 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Nov. 5, benefits Junior Achievement of NEPA, an organization that prepares young people for life in the real world and gives them a taste of grown-up careers.

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“One little girl who came here was the ‘teller’ in the bank,” said Junior Achievement program and development manager Suzanne McCabe. “She loved being the teller so much, she told us she didn’t want to take her break.”

Taking a break, voting in an election, giving eye examinations and serving as mayor or district attorney are all part of the educational day area fifth-graders can spend at the Mericle center. Junior Achievement president Melissa Turlip explained each child applies for three positions and teachers decide who gets to do what.

Small rooms set up to replicate various businesses include a grocery, city hall, bank, television and radio stations, newspaper office and more.

Last year, the organization’s first “A Chair Affair” raised about $11,000 to support the educational programs, McCabe said.

“I do believe in what Junior Achievement does,” Guzik, the mosaic artist, said. “The kids need to be prepared for the real world.”

Local businesses Kurlancheek Home Furnishings, La-Z-Boy, The Lamp Factory and Noble Furniture all donated chairs, McCabe said, as did several individuals.

Among the many chairs to be auctioned on Nov. 5 is a “mermaid chair” donated by Chris Bedwick from Bedwick’s Pharmacy in Wilkes-Barre. Bedwick found the chair, with mermaids painted on its seat, at the shore and enhanced its seacoast theme with a mermaid-shaped wine holder, a bottle of Two Oceans savignon blanc, the novel “The Mermaid Chair” by Sue Monk Kidd and gift certificates to Cooper’s Seafood and Red Lobster.

Not all the chairs are for adults. Just the right size to help a child reach a sink and wash his or her hands is a little stool donated by Turlip, who included a book about toilet training and, courtesy of Procter & Gamble, a $400 gift certificate for diapers.

For older children there’s a “time-out” chair which donor K. J. Barrett of Trucksville decorated with teardrops and such sentiments as “What did I do?” and “I’m sorry.”

She’s made similar ones for nieces and nephews — not that they ever misbehaved, of course. “It was more of a fun gift.”

A child’s stool accompanied by a Procter & Gamble gift certificate for $400 is one of several offerings up for auction at ‘A Chair Affair.’
http://www.psdispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_TTL102715chairaffair1.jpg.optimal.jpgA child’s stool accompanied by a Procter & Gamble gift certificate for $400 is one of several offerings up for auction at ‘A Chair Affair.’ Aimee Dilger | Sunday Dispatch

Suzanne McCabe moves a ‘time-out’ chair into a line-up of other colorful chairs that will be part of the ‘A Chair Affair’ fund-raiser to benefit Junior Achievement of NEPA.
http://www.psdispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_TTL102715chairaffair2.jpg.optimal.jpgSuzanne McCabe moves a ‘time-out’ chair into a line-up of other colorful chairs that will be part of the ‘A Chair Affair’ fund-raiser to benefit Junior Achievement of NEPA. Aimee Dilger | Sunday Dispatch

Sue Guzik of Fly Me Home in Pittston decorated this chair with glass tiles for ‘A Chair Affair.’
http://www.psdispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_TTL102715chairaffair3.jpg.optimal.jpgSue Guzik of Fly Me Home in Pittston decorated this chair with glass tiles for ‘A Chair Affair.’ Aimee Dilger | Sunday Dispatch

By Mary Therese Biebel

mbiebel@timesleader.com

IF YOU GO

What: A Chair Affair

Who: Benefits Junior Achievement of NEPA

When: 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Nov. 5

Where: JA Mericle Family Center for Enterprise Education, 1122 Oak St., Pittston Township

Tickets: $35

Info: 570-602-3600

Reach Mary Therese Biebel at 570-991-6109 or on Twitter @BiebelMT