David Gardner’s sad, surreal experience with the crash of Continental Flight 3407, and his desire to find a way to help, began when he went to his sunroom to see what his dogs were barking about.

He saw flames out the window and turned on the TV. He then kept looking from one to the other. From the window to the TV and back again.

“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do,” he remembered thinking. “It was a numbing experience.”

A few days later he got an idea, and designed a fund-raising T-shirt of a broken heart with a Band-Aid. “I guess it’s helping me heal,” he said.

This is a sentiment shared by others in a community looking for a way to transform its sorrow into something constructive. The tragedy that claimed 50 lives has led to a series of projects, some in the works, some unfolding now: From the heart T-shirts to commemorative light-pole banners to raising money for a town clock with a plaque for crash victims.

“It’s whatever people want to do that helps them feel a little better, that helps them heal,” said Lori Adams, a volunteer coordinator, who was selling the T-shirts at Eastern Hills Mall Friday afternoon. “It’s not just T-shirts. We’re trying to coordinate any effort.”

Other projects on Adams’ list include arrangements under way at the Clarence Center fire hall for a commemorative June race and concert. There are more plans for more concerts.

A group of Clarence mothers made thank-you notes that are now being handwritten to all the people in the emergency crews and first responders.

Volunteers have made plans to take down the ribbons on trees and telephone poles when they get too battered. Local florists donated them in black, for sorrow, and white, for hope.

Mark Woodward, the town historian, also has begun to set up a series of days for videotaping and recording people’s stories before sharp memories of the experience fade.

Adams, a real estate broker and convenience store owner, started to pitch in after sending an e-mail offer of help to the town. This led to the job of volunteer coordinator at the ad-hoc command center in Town Hall.

Throughout the 11-day cleanup after the crash, Adams was moved, sometimes to tears, by all the people who came to help: One boy arrived every day with a basket of cookies for volunteers. So many restaurants offered food to the emergency crews that she had to schedule a rotation so there wouldn’t be an overabundance. One day an elderly woman brought in a new purse she’d filled with everything a woman might need to give to Karen Wielinski, whose husband died when the plane crashed on their house.

“Everybody has their own little piece to give,” Adams said.

For Debbie Lesinski, it was upsetting to have to leave Clarence the morning after the crash, when she wanted to stay and help. Instead, the interior decorator had to attend the Hamburg home and garden show, where she had a booth.

A few evenings later, she organized a meeting in her kitchen with other local women. They decided to sell new commemorative banners for town light poles.

For $225 or less, people can help sponsor a banner that says, “Tomorrow . . . Together & Stronger.” Money raised will help pay for a town street clock in tribute to last year’s bicentennial, as originally planned in part by the Clarence Center Community Association.

But now, banner money also will help pay for a plaque for crash victims that will be affixed to the clock.

“There is a driving need to help,” said Lesinski. “I was gone for the weekend, and I felt like I wasn’t here to do my share.”

Lesinski and Adams also were pitching in at the T-shirt selling table at Eastern Hills Mall, where there will be one final day of sales from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today.

Clarence’s New Buffalo Shirt Factory, where the shirts were made by workers who donated their time, will donate the proceeds. Sales were expected to raise about $30,000 for a Flight 3407 fund, managed by the Community Foundation, to help people whose lives were affected by the crash.

Gardner, who is known for inventing a technique for printing bright designs on black T-shirts — a favorite of such clients as Harley-Davidson and the Rolling Stones — said the heart shirt seems to be helping in another way, too.

He found a way to make the Band-Aid look three-dimensional. He’s been noticing that the effect makes people immediately try to feel the fabric and see if the bandage is real. The move to touch the shirt then sparks conversation. People often end up talking about someone they cared about who died.

“I think it gives people maybe a jumping-off point. It’s hard to even broach the subject,” he said. “I think that’s the only way you do heal . . . You find that sharing it with other people is a way to come to peace with it yourself.”