Laredo Thrift and Center for Creative Reuse, launched in November 2025, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to offering sustainable and upcycled fashion to Laredoans.
Founder Heather García was inspired to create the organization after witnessing an excess of used clothing warehouses throughout Laredo.
“Laredo has over forty clothing warehouses. It’s so overwhelming,” she said, noting that the warehouses, along with landfill trucks, carried several tons of unused clothing that could be repurposed.
“They make multiple trips every week,” she said. “It costs between two to four hundred dollars per trip.” García explained that she launched “Laredo Thrift” because she felt the need to save and repurpose these clothing articles. “My goal is to have the warehouses drop off to me,” she said. “It can be upcycled; things can be donated to local and national homeless shelters and animal shelters, mutual aid groups.”
García hopes to have a pay-by-pound thrift shop as well as a community space for Laredoans to host workshops, classes, and support local vendors.
Recently, García debuted Rewoven: A Sustainable Fashion Show at the Pan American Courts Art Complex.
She worked with the TAMIU Fashion Society to style and repurpose abandoned clothing from Laredo warehouses and to share her vision with the community.
García revealed a larger scale fashion show is in the works and is set to debut July 29 at Casa Ortiz.
“This one’s going to be the bigger one,” she said. “It’s going to be a ticketed event [with] cocktail tables… and a dinner.” The show will include both local and out-of-town designers who have been sent pieces directly from Laredo warehouses.
“I want people to see what’s being thrown away,” she said.
She revealed that there will be both a fashion show and a gallery of upcycled fashion on display, as well as a possible collaboration with George Washington Jr., a locally famous wrestler and artist.
Currently traveling between Laredo and Tucson, Arizona, García hopes to move back to Laredo full time to start building up her warehouse space to continue her passion of reducing clothing waste while offering Laredoans sustainable fashion.
