A new house can now be built thanks to the jeans, skirts, purses and other denim materials some Western students decided they didn’t need.

For the last two months, students have dropped off their denim to “Cotton, from Blue to Green,” a denim drive organized by the Public Relations Student Society of America.

The denim is going to be made into insulation for homes affected by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast region that are being re-built by Habitat for Humanity volunteers. The drive ended last Thursday and 660 pieces of denim were collected. The goal was 500 pieces, which makes enough insulation for one house.

Bekah Clark, a senior from Bellevue, Neb., and PRSSA president, was very pleased with the results.

“I think it’s great,” Clark said. “Our goal was 500, so I think it’s awesome we exceeded our goal.”

The drive was sponsored by Cotton Inc., a company that does research and marketing for the cotton industry.

The drive was officially kicked off on Sept. 24 when Cotton’s Dirty Laundry tour came to DUC South Lawn. About 2,500 students attended, Clark said.

The event consisted of games, prizes and free stuff to educate students about cotton and encourage them to use it, said Kelly Sprat, representative for Jack Morton Worldwide, the company that produced the tour.

“So many of their favorite things are probably cotton,” Sprat said.

In addition, students are sharing clothes, doing their own laundry and buying new clothes, so they come into contact with cotton a lot, Sprat said.

Also, some of the benefits of this material include its ability to breathe and resist odor. This is one reason it can be recycled into insulation, Sprat said.

The first Dirty Laundry tour was in 2005. From this drive, participants collected about 14,000 pieces of denim, which insulated 70 homes, Sprat said.

This year, they traveled to 11 universities. They look at factors such as the size, culture and student involvement of a campus when deciding which schools to visit.

The tour hadn’t been to Kentucky yet, so they decided to look at Western. The warm reception received from student organizations is what made them decide to add Western, Sprat said.

Omega Phi Alpha Sorority donated 163 pieces to the drive, said OPA member Katie St. Charles, a senior from Perry, Ga.

St. Charles is head of the university committee, which means she oversees services OPA does for Western.

“Honestly, it’s kind of a good feeling,” she said. “Even though you don’t see where it’s going, you still made a difference.”

The drive was also a learning experience for PRSSA. The project helped the students learn about how to have a public relations campaign, said PRSSA faculty adviser Vicki Bagwell.

Reach Nina Bosken