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Aeropostale Collecting Jeans for Haiti Relief
While not as urgent a need as the need for blood donations and clean water, the ongoing relief effort in Haiti will now benefit from the donation of clean clothes, thanks to casual brand Aeropostale.
Through February 12, the mall retailer is accepting donations of gently used jeans and will match each donated pair with a new one from their own line. And Aeropostale is offering a 25 percent off coupon to anyone who brings in a pair from his or her closet.
And there’s no reason to hold back: If the company collects more than 100,000 pairs of pants, the surplus will be donated to local charities and homeless shelters.
For more details, check out the Teens for Jeans page on DoSomething.org.
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I love your blog and after I read this, it got me thinking:
Do you think Aeropostale is really doing something ethical or that they might be “charity-washing” themselves to gain more buyers and creating marketing ties in a country they didn’t have before (Haiti)? And if Aeropostale uses cheap sweat-shop labor to make their products and ships that product loud to a country without jeans, is it still considered benevolence?
Because when I read this, I’m not moved. I’m incredibly suspicious. What are you thoughts about this? I’d love to talk this out.
-roe.
yeshoneychyle.com
Comment by roe — January 31, 2010 @ 1:01 pm
Interesting question, Roe. I can certainly see the contradiction in a company sending relief supplies to one impoverished country while employing cheap labor in another.
I tried searching for Aeropostale’s labor policies but came up empty. Do you have any resources we should look into?
Comment by M.J. Prest — February 1, 2010 @ 11:48 am
[...] one comes from Roe at YesHoneyChyle.com in response to our post about Aeropostale’s denim drive for Haiti: Do you think Aeropostale is really doing something ethical or that they might be [...]
Pingback by Ethical Style » From the Mailbag: Is Aeropostale ‘Charity-Washing’ for Haiti? — July 2, 2010 @ 10:50 am