Coplay will begin its 150th anniversary celebration April 6 - and what better way to commemorate the event than with a locally themed board game highlighting the borough’s community, civic and business greats?

In 2014, two Whitehall natives, Justin Sommer and Benjamin Bush, thought it would be fun to create a Coplay-inspired version of Monopoly for residents to enjoy. They called it Copolopoly. Their goal was to put a twist on the traditional Monopoly game, while representing the small borough of Coplay and the businesses it has to offer.

“Although we lived in Whitehall, we found that, with Copolopoly, we could create a small-town feel that could include the majority of the businesses and organizations throughout the borough,” Sommer said.

He and Bush spent countless hours brainstorming ideas and coming up with questions and designs for each piece of the game. College breaks for holidays and downtime during their semesters were all dedicated to perfecting the details.

“It was a daunting task to both aesthetically design and generate content for all the cards, the money, the board and determining just how to get the game printed and assembled,” Bush said.

“The game was finished in the fall of 2016,” he added.

The duo noticed the excitement in the residents they told and realized that word of mouth and marketing on Facebook would be the best way to tell people where they could purchase the game.

Their hard work would soon pay off when residents began requesting their own copies.

“Once we had the games in hand and were able to get them into stores, they sold incredibly fast,” Sommer said. “The game has been sold mainly to people within the borough and surrounding areas, but also to those in Jersey, Maine, Florida and California.”

For $40, individuals were able to purchase the game at the Coplay Giant, Coplay News Agency, Tony’s Hobby Shop and Reph’s Complete Auto Repair. Due to the growing success, the games have sold out and are no longer available in stores.

“The games were sold out by mid-January after being in stores for less than a month,” Sommer said.

Luckily, one game will be raffled off at the town’s anniversary gala celebration in April.

Sommer and Bush are ecstatic at the success of this game and want to give credit to everyone who was involved.

“A special thank you goes out to our sponsors, and we ask that people of the community support these businesses and organizations,” Sommer said.

“We would like to thank the staff at the borough office for handling mail-in orders; Scott Nagy, who took majority of the photos for the game, both from the land and air; and the most thanks to our family and friends who helped out in any way that they could, especially Jeff Sommer (Justin’s father), whose enthusiasm for the success of the game cannot go without recognition,” Sommer said.