Victims of Hurricane Katrina will be warmer this winter as a result of a clothing drive that collected denim for insulation on Tuesday in front of Shaw Hall.
Cotton Inc. and the MSU Public Relations Student Society of America, or PRSSA, hosted Cotton's Dirty Laundry Tour, which is a 14-stop nationwide event to educate students about cotton clothing.
MSU is the second stop of the tour.
The event served as an outlet for the "Cotton. From Blue to Green." denim drop program, which recycles old denim into ecologically sound UltraTouch — a natural cotton fiber insulation.
The insulation will be used to reconstruct schools damaged by Hurricane Katrina in the East Baton Rouge Parish School District.
It will be provided by Bonded Logic, the company that creates the insulation, and will be donated to a program called Advance Baton Rouge, which will distribute the material.
The school district has seen a 10 percent increase in the student body in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the insulation serves as a cheap, effective and ecological way to effectively warm the halls of the schools.
Advertising junior Matthew Roth said he thought the event was a great way to recycle old clothes.
"It's a good idea; it gives (the victims) a bit of insulation and gets rid of old, crappy clothes," he said.
The student response to the denim drop was extremely positive, with the number of donated jeans exceeding the set goal by more than half, said Mandy Sharp, PRSSA publication director.
"Our goal was 500 pairs of jeans, and so far we've collected over 1,050 pairs of jeans," Sharp said.
Sharp said Facebook.com contributed to the event's success.
"We've been spreading the word through Facebook actually. We have over 1,500 Facebook friends, so that's been a great way to connect with people."
Another incentive for students was the offer of a $5 gift certificate to The Buckle, a clothing store chain, with every jeans donation.
But the event was not only about denim donations.
The festival-type event featured giveaways and games, including a game show-style event called Wheel of Cotton in which students competed to win a specialized Tide iPod by answering questions about how to remove stains.
Winners would then spin a large wheel to win the iPod.
A memory game was also featured, showing a board full of boxes representing the various stages of cotton production, as well as a booth where students grabbed labels flying around their heads marked "100% Cotton" and a basketball game in which students separated balls by washing instructions and had to throw them into the appropriate oversized washing machine.
Mike Raezler, a finance junior, said he was impressed by the event.
"Honestly, I didn't think I could have so much fun with cotton," he said.
