Jeans donated to The Columbus School Foundation’s ropero are being organized by NHS students, to be sold later in a bazaar with the means to fund a dance group’s exchange to Germany. 

A dance group from Instituto Educativo Las Palmas, won the semi-finals at a national competition and was given the opportunity to travel to the finals in Germany later this year. The jeans were a donation from the company American Eagle, through their campaign with the school called “Dona tu Jean”. 

Last year, TCS created an strategic alliance with the public school Insitituto Educativo Las Palmas to improve and expand the impact on our communities and associates through more dynamic and collaborative projects and activities.

“The dance group from Instituto Educativo Las Palmas consists of six members and their coach. They joined a competition with a German entity called “Danza-Teatro Alemana” and they won, earning 90% of the initial budget needed for the trip,” Jorge Marulanda, Rector of Insitituto Educativo Las Palmas, said.

This project consists of an intercultural exchange between Colombia and Germany. The girls from the dance group will first receive a group of dance students from Steptext Company in Bremen, Germany, who will be coming to Colombia. The objective of the group is to promote sociocultural and environmental sustainability, based on goal #15 of the sustainable development goals of the UN. 

“In this trip the girls will present their play, as well as having more activities based around the intercultural exchange. The issue here is that the remaining 10% of the budget for the trip has to be paid by them,” Angela Botero, TCS Foundation Director, said.

The remaining 10% of the budget of the trip comes to be a total of $40 million COP between all the members. TCS Foundation will collaborate to help them fund the rest of their budget.

In 2021, the jean company American Eagle created a campaign called dona tu jean around the country and in the school. TCS initially collected a total of 150 jeans. Then, American Eagle donated approximately 1,500 jeans more to the school foundation.

“Our idea is to start off with an activity where w8e can sell these jeans. This will be a bazaar where we will donate 50% of the profit to pay the budget for the trip,” Botero said. 

For this project to be possible, an inventory of the jeans had to be made. In the school foundation there are currently 36 boxes of the jeans that American Eagle donated. 

“We opened an invitation for members of NHS to help us the next few weeks with the organization of this activity, we are hoping that with the help of everyone we will be able to finish really fast to start preparing the bazaar,” Botero said.

For the past three weeks, since the activity started, NHS students have been working every day during first block on the inventory of the jeans, sorting them out among size, brand, and condition. The goal is to send out at least a box per day. 

“This process has been really long, but also really exciting. It’s impressive to see the amount of boxes we send full of jeans that are going to be sold very soon for a wonderful cause,” Camila Zuloaga, Grade 11, said.