Students dropped their pants on the Quad on Friday to show their support for efforts to build sustainable housing.

A total of 70 pairs of jeans were dropped off Friday during the launch of Cotton Incorporated’s fall denim drive, ‘Cotton. From Blue to Green.’ During the two-hour student-run event, a handful of people came to the Quad to donate as many as eight pairs of jeans each.

The campaign is sponsored by Cotton, in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity, to raise awareness for sustainability. The denim collected will be recycled into natural cotton fiber insulation to build houses for communities in need.

This year, Syracuse University is among five participating universities that will run the campaign on its campus. Laura Foti, the event head and sophomore public relations major, said she was thrilled to be part of a national campaign. Foti is also a staff writer for The Daily Orange.

‘We’re the only school in the East Coast, so I think that’s quite an honor,’ Foti said.

Schools in Canada and across the nation have expressed interest in donating to the national drive, Foti said. She said she hopes more people will want to be a part of this cause, but that depends on how students feel about it.

‘A lot of people who donated were excited, and we’re just hoping that this will create a snowball effect,’ Foti said. She said she hopes faculty, staff and members of the Syracuse community will contribute as well.

Pallavi Gupta, a graduate student in biology, stopped by the Quad to donate a pair of jeans. She said she supports the effort, as it helps better the community.

‘I would like to contribute whatever I can,’ she said.

Noel Frodelius, a junior art history major, said she agreed. Frodelius hopes more people would work together to donate jeans, she said, after donating two pairs of jeans that were too old to give to The Salvation Army.

‘I wanted to do something with them that was for a good cause,’ she said.

Foti is donating 115 pairs of jeans collected from her neighborhood in Pennsylvania. She said it is an easy way to give back and something with which anyone can identify. She cited the campus coming together to aid Haiti last year as a positive indication of SU’s reputation for altruism.

‘We are a community that believes in helping others,’ Foti said. ‘I think that when people hear about this cause, they will give back.’

The reception has been good so far, but Foti said she expects more people to contribute now that donation bins were moved to the Schine Student Center and residence halls on Saturday.

Fundraising events are organized every weekend for the month of October, including a denim drive at the greek life houses on campus Oct. 16 and a Habitat for Humanity event at the Sheraton University Hotel and Conference Center on Oct. 24. There will also be an event at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry at the end of the month.

Foti said she hopes to reach out to companies like Wegmans and The Salvation Army, which could help raise funds for the campaign. These partnerships have yet to be confirmed, she said.

Residents from the Syracuse community are also encouraged to join the effort, Foti said.

‘We’re trying to reach out to as many people as possible,’ Foti said. ‘I think the sky’s the limit.’

atanying@syr.edu

Published on October 10, 2010 at 12:00 pm