A local clothing store, here in our town, is helping to change the world one pair of jeans at a time! After learning about this project we drove down to the store and learned more. We talked with the store manager about how their store was taking part in collecting 100,000 pairs of blue jeans.
Why? What could they possibly do with all these jeans? This store (part of a national chain) teamed up with “Cotton Incorporated” to launch a drive to help rebuild communities adversely affected by hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters. The goal is to collect 100,000 pairs of donated jeans and have them recycled into environmental-friendly insulation. This will provide enough insulation for over 180 homes in the Gulf Coast region! That’s a lot of homes! When my wife was preparing a pile of blue jeans to take with us I wasn’t to sure about it. I cared about the cause but don’t mess with a man’s boots or old beat up jeans. I also was a little bitter about what role big business played in the hardships our country has dealt with these last two years.
Putting people, or business’s into the same classification by appearance isn’t fair and yet here I was balking at contributing. We had one experience where we donated money to help a little league baseball team travel out of state for a tournament, only to later learn that the coach skipped town with the money.
I wanted to make sure that it was legit and not a ploy to get people into their store. When the manager took us in the back of the store we learned they were for real. Boxes were overflowing with donated jeans. With each donation they also gave 25% off on all purchases on new jeans.
Big business does have a ways to go in Americans trusting them again, but after seeing this it was a good start for our household. Whoever knows if the items or money donated will actually end up going where they say it will. On the other side of the coin many less fortunate lives depend on the compassion of others to make it through their 24 hours. After visiting and talking with this business we felt comfortable helping them to meet their goal of 100,000 pairs of jeans. It was refreshing to see a project that really was going to something so positive.
