Thanks to a project in place at Southwest Medical Center in Liberal, some local organizations have found that it it pays to wear jeans.

In January of 2008, Southwest Medical Center Patient/Community Coordinator Liz Taylor wanted to ź??make a differenceź?ť. Knowing that her fellow employees wanted to be able to wear jeans to work, she approached the administration of the local hospital with a plan: allow employees to wear jeans on the first Friday of the month in exchange for a $5 donation that would go to a local charity. The administration supported the idea and in January of 2008, Jeans Day began.

ź??Jeans Day allows employees who purchase a Jeans Sticker that they also wear on the first Friday of the month, proclaiming that they are wearing jeans in support of a local organization,ź?ť explained SWMC Public Relations Director Nancy Kletecka. ź??Money raised goes to the charity specified for a particular month.ź?ť

All of the charities are 501-C organizations, according to Kletecka.

Thus far, Southwest Medical Center employees have raised a total of $5,207 for a number of local organizations. Those include: Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Birthline, March of Dimes, Center for Independent Living, Relay for Life, Community Baptist Food Cupboard, Crossroads Riding Therapy, Fellowship Baptist Food Cupboard, Liberal Good Samaritan, Breast Cancer Awareness (Coalition for Women), Rape Crisis Center, Liberal Care Center (Mexican American Ministries), Great Plains for Animals, Head Start, Home Care Inc. (Community Food Cupboard), Liberal Latchkey, Liberal Weissel Boxing Club, Link Inc., and Mosaic.

The charity in September who will receive the Jeans Day donations will be Parents and Children Together (PACT).