The Quad will be turning from green to blue Friday in a student-led effort to collect denim for charity.

Syracuse University will be one of five universities to participate in Cotton Incorporated’s fall denim drive, ‘Cotton. From Blue to Green.’ Denim collected will be donated and turned into natural cotton fiber insulation.

The event, ‘Drop (and recycle) Your Jeans on the Quad,’ on Friday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. will kick off the drive, which runs throughout October until Nov. 3.

Hill Communications, a student-run SU public relations firm, organized the event. Laura Foti, team leader for the event and a sophomore public relations major, joined the effort when she received a notification about it from a professor. Foti is also a staff writer for The Daily Orange.

The event should be easy for college students to participate in, she said.

‘Everyone has an old pair of jeans. Everyone has a pair that doesn’t fit right,’ Foti said.

The event is expected to attract more than 250 attendees, according to its Facebook page. Many have approached Foti about the event, she said. She also said Chancellor Nancy Cantor complimented the efforts, and alumni throughout the United States and Canada have contacted Foti to ask about making donations.

The event is open to all types of denim donations.

‘It doesn’t matter what your size is. It doesn’t matter what your style is,’ Foti said.

The goal is to gather at least 500 pairs of jeans, enough to insulate one house. But Foti, who plans to donate 11 pairs of jeans, said she would like to collect more. She said she would like to match the University of Kentucky, which collected 7,000 pieces of denim earlier this fall.

Other participating universities include the University of Texas, University of Nebraska and University of Wisconsin.

The group set up a table in the Schine Student Center on Wednesday. For students who cannot attend Friday’s event, donation boxes will also be available in the student center and residence halls. There will also be a special fundraising event each weekend, including one with Habitat for Humanity and a denim drive at the greek life houses on campus.

Cotton arranged the event and supplied the SU group with boxes, promotional cutouts, Frisbees and T-shirts, Foti said. Cotton began the fundraising effort in 2006 and, since then, has collected more than 270,000 pieces of denim — enough to build 540 homes with the denim insulation, according to Cotton’s website.

Student Association encouraged students to drop by the event on the Quad through its Facebook feed.

SA President Jon Barnhart said the association supports many campus initiatives and has reached out to help Habitat for Humanity in the past. He said he was glad to see students participating in a project run by a smaller campus group.

Students are busy, but donating old jeans on campus is an easy way to help out, said Hannah Messinger, a senior public relations and psychology major who is working on the initiative with Foti. 

Messinger said she has prepared five pairs to donate and is planning on picking up a few extra at the Salvation Army. She said she was struck by the statistic that 1,333 pieces of denim create one ton of landfill waste.

She said she thinks SU has enough manpower to surpass the initial goal of 500 pairs. Messinger will be working with campus clubs and the denim drive for greek life to collect the denim.

The month-long event is about more than just jeans, Messinger said.

‘It’s about giving back,’ she said. ‘But it’s also about coming together and showing what can happen.’

dkmcbrid@syr.edu

Published on October 6, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dara: dkmcbrid@syr.edu | @daramcbride