Behind Volcom's Give Jeans a Chance

Boxing jeans at Coastal Edge.

D. Nachnani of Coastal Edge ramped up the program even more in Virginia Beach.

This year, D. was trying to think of a way to “supercharge” the campaign in his area, and decided to approach the local school district.

The district embraced the idea, and about 11 high schools got involved, including not only the students, but teachers as well.

In three and a half weeks, the kids collected 6,800 pairs of jeans. (That figure is in addition to the 13,000 collected program-wide.)

“It really blew my mind,” D. said.

Coastal Edge awarded $500 to the school that collected the most.

Trend Cellar in Illinois collected 1,340 pairs of jeans at one store.

He and the school district were so excited about the results, D. hopes to involve the middle schools next year.

One sobering thing he learned in the process is that its not just middle-aged men who are homeless, but teenagers as well.

For 2011, Volcom is making a few tweaks to the program. It will be expanded to include jackets. Volcom will involve fewer stores this year so the company can work more closely with stores to help them ramp up the impact by involving the community and the media just as some stores like Coastal Edge and Trend Cellar in Illinois did.

Give Jeans and Jackets a Chance will run in August and September.

Here’s a video from Coastal Edge that shows how they got the schools involved and a video from Volcom that shows the overall program.