MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. (WITN) – There’s a lighthearted sign war taking place in Eastern Carolina, with businesses and organizations playfully poking fun at each other with funny signs.

It’s happening along Highway 70 in Morehead City and is now expanding into other communities.

It all began with Dank Burrito making fun at Ioannis, a restaurant across the highway. “Ioannis are really good friends of ours,” Dank Burrito store manager Kaitlynn Wallace said. “They put a happy birthday sign up and left it up a little bit longer than anticipated. So we made fun at them about it and started the sign which just caught on.”

Businesses, schools, fire departments, and even churches are participating in the sign wars across Carteret County and beyond.

Wallace says she was taken by surprise by the outcome and how much of an impact it would have. “One thing I didn’t expect to come from this is the community coming together and trying to raise money for school lunch debt and seeing the community coming together to help, that’s heartwarming.”

Carteret-Craven Electric Co-op has also joined the sign wars and announced on their Facebook page that for every like they receive on their sign-war-related post, the Carteret-Craven Electric Foundation will make a donation to the Carteret County Public School Foundation and Craven County Schools.

Others have said that the sign wars are a great way to take your mind off the animosity in the world, take a break, and have a laugh.

There’s now a Facebook group with over 9,000 followers where people, businesses, and organizations have been joining in on the fun from all over.