First-year teachers in pre-kindergarten through fourth grade classrooms spend anywhere from two to five percent of their salary on supplies.

"We need to help new teachers find creative, inexpensive ways to provide those supplies," said Coralee Smith, associate professor in the Elementary Education and Reading Department at Buffalo State College.

One alternative is to make supplies rather than buy them. So Smith and student Stephanie Voelner, a Home Depot employee, approached Home Depot in Clarence with a request for the supplies and space necessary to show 15 elementary education students how to make a reversible whiteboard/chalkboard.

Home Depot agreed, and Voelner acted as trainer in a workshop held on February 21 at the Clarence store on Transit Road. Voelner showed participants how to cut tub-surround material to create the whiteboard, and how to sand off the rough edges. Then Voelner used a special paint on the other side to create an erasable chalkboard. The students will use their new reversible whiteboards in their pre-service practicum, in which they help teach math and science to elementary school students at West Hertel Academy.

Krispy Kreme supported the event with ten dozen doughnuts, and Wegman's has agreed to supply dry-erase markers.