Up-cycling jeans at the Sea Cliff Farmers Market

Many may have a couple pair of jeans that have sat untouched in the drawer for quite some time and the Sea Cliff Farmers Market has a solution.

In an effort to promote sustainable living and to honor Earth Day, which falls on April 22, the farmers market that is held at Village Square in Glen Cove collected April 17 and will continue to collect on April 24 denim that will ultimately be recycled into insulation as part of the Blue Jeans Go Green Recycling Program.

Since Cotton Incorporated’s Blue Jeans Go Green program launched in 2006, over one million pieces of denim have been diverted from landfills and recycled into insulation.

“I decided I wanted to try to do something around Earth Day,” Sea Cliff Farmers Market organizer and manager Amy Peters said, “and I thought that would be a nice promotion to get it going and the market would be a great venue to start the drive.”

The jeans drive on April 17 was a success after farmers market attendees filled up a whole donation box with their jeans, and then some bags on the side. But it’s not too late for residents who have a pair of jeans they want to go to better use, as there will be another drive at the market on April 24, the last market of the season until it opens back up at Garvies Point this summer under a new name, Deep Roots Farmers Market.

After Peters, who lives in Glen Cove, brought home the piles of jeans donated at Saturday’s market, she went through them to make sure the items met the Blue Jeans Go Green guidelines of being composed of at least 90 percent cotton.

The items that were not eligible will go to an equally important cause.

“I brought a bag to a friend of mine who is doing a collection for clothing for displaced people from the Island of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,” Peters said.

According to Didier Trebucq, the United Nations resident coordinator for Barbados and Eastern Caribbean Counties and territories, following a series of powerful eruptions from La Soufrière volcano on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent, 12,600 evacuees have now been registered and require support with basic needs for food, water, clothing and shelter supplies.

On April 20, Wendy Rosow, of Sea Cliff, was driving on the Cross Island Parkway on her way to a drive in Brooklyn with her car full of items that were donated by the Sea Cliff community, including the bag of jeans, and will be distributed in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. This was her third trip into Brooklyn to donate items.

“I have been down in that part of the world for 38 years and my children grew up coming and going from St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” said Rosow. “My car is loaded from front to back with over $1,000 worth of purchased goods that were donated and other [items] like clothing, toys; things that came out of people’s homes that were gently used.”

To find out how to assist the residents of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines at this time, contact Rosow at wendy@simpsonfilms.com.