LEWISTON — Wanted: pens, papers, tri-fold boards, tissues, markers, glue, paint, used DVD cases and other school supplies.

To help classroom teachers and students, parent Tina Hutchinson and newly elected School Committee member Francis Gagnon are leading a community effort to stockpile needed classroom supplies.

Hutchinson’s daughter is a teacher. Teachers often spend their own money to furnish supplies to students who go without, she said.

Gagnon said that each year his company, Photo Finish, raises money for a charity by selling photos of children posing with Santa. “It was Santa’s idea this year to bring supplies to teachers,” he said.

When Gagnon heard about Hutchinson’s project, the two joined forces.

To jump-start the supply stash, volunteers are staffing a cutting table at the Auburn Mall near Santa. When parents buy photos of their children with Santa, the photos come out in sheets. Volunteers cut the photos down to size, and Photo Finish donates $1 toward the classroom supply project.

“That money will be used to start up the supply closet,” Hutchinson said. “We’d like to make it self-sustaining.”

The hope is to have enough supplies to start making deliveries to teachers in January or February.

Volunteers have shown up at Photo Finish’s Santa spot for several weeks. “The feedback has been great,” Hutchinson said. “Even our School Committee representatives, like Linda Scott, have volunteered. It’s a community effort to do what’s right for our schools.”

After supplies are collected and purchased, they’ll be stored at Hutchinson’s home until the Lewiston School Department has room for a community supply closet. That will happen, Hutchinson said, when the new elementary school opens in 2019, if not before.

The School Committee has increased money in the budget for supplies in recent years, “but needs are always ongoing,” said Lewiston teacher Sammie Garnett, president of the Lewiston Education Association.

Garnett said she’s volunteering at the Santa cutting table on Saturday.

Teachers often pay for supplies throughout the year, she said. “One elementary teacher today told me she continues to buy markers, folders and notebooks for her students.” The partnership with parents is helpful, Garnett said.

“Their ability to organize the community to support our teachers is warmly felt and much appreciated. On behalf of the Lewiston Education Association, I thank them,” she said.

For more information, email Hutchinson at [email protected] or Gagnon at [email protected].

Updates on the project are posted on the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/groups/lewistonpublicschoolsparentsandstaff/.