ELMIRA, N.Y. (WENY) -- While the Elmira Italian American Veterans Club building may be up for sale, one local cemetery is helping those vets preserve history. Two monuments were moved from IAVC on Saturday morning to continue to honor those who served.

For decades, two stone memorials stood outside the IAVC. One memorial honors all those who served in World War II and the other is dedicated to all IAVC members, both living and deceased.

"We were here today moving the monuments," said Joe Coletta, a 50-year member of the IAVC. "We had the World War II monument that they just brought on the truck, and then we had the one from Saint Anthony's that we brought down here when they sold the complex to Elmira College. But it's kind of a sad day for us because in its heyday you could stop down in the middle of the week and have a beer on your way home from work or whatever."

Back in February, it was announced that the club would be closing its doors and the remaining memorabilia would be given away or sold.

Coletta shares that he has several cherished memories from his years spent at the club and will always recall them when he drives by. While he is sad to see the club shut down and the monuments go, he says it's a good thing that they will still be on display in the community.

However, when it came to figuring out what to do with the monuments when the closure was first announced, it was a collaborative effort between IAVC and the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the town of Elmira.

On Sunday, Frank Pierce, the president of Forest Lawn, came to IAVC with several community volunteers to take the monuments down and transport them.

"I'm happy we got them, and everybody else and I'm happy that I had the guys to come up and help us..." said Pierce. "If you look at it and you read it, and it talks about the sacrifices that the soldiers made, so we figured this would be an ideal place to put them up here."

Forest Lawn Memorial Park covers over 40 acres of land but, Pierce chose to have the monuments placed in one section specifically dedicated to veterans. This area of the cemetery contains space for visitors to come and attend services and honor veterans from this region and all around the world who have passed.

IAVC works hand in hand with Forest Lawn on this section of the cemetery for services and events throughout the year.

"We have a very large veteran section," said Coletta. "We have services there for both Memorial Day and Veterans Day. There's a cannon up there and we're going to be following them up there. We'll see one on one side of the cannon and the other one on the other side. So they found a good home and they will definitely be appreciated in the cemetery."

The Italian American Veterans Club is still giving away and selling some of the supplies from the club. If you are interested in taking a look at those items, Coletta says they will be posted on the IAVC Facebook page.

For those looking to visit the memorial and stay up to date on services for veterans, you can visit the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Facebook page linked here.