When life came to a screeching halt last March, many people found they had too much spare time on their hands.
Maya Garcia has been an active member of the Claremont community since she moved there in 2013 from Connecticut. She participated in many extracurricular activities such as Claremont’s speech and debate team, swim team and choir. Garcia too found herself feeling aimless.
She looked at her closet and decided that she might as well organize it now that she had the extra time.
“I was rummaging around my closet and saw that I had an excess of clothing, and then it blossomed into something bigger,” Garcia said.
She realized that she could take the clothes that she did not wear anymore and repurpose them. She could sell them to someone in her community who needed them more than she did and give the clothes a new life.
Garcia started an Instagram account called Maya’s Closet, @mayas_closet__, to display the clothes she found during her spring cleaning that she was going to sell along with some donations from family and friends. As the account began to grow exponentially, she decided to turn her side hustle into a business.
She started going to yard and estate sales on the weekends to pick up new items for the business.
“It’s really awesome,” Garcia said. “You meet a ton of new people who are on the move. Like last week I went to a yard sale and there was a Beatles impersonator from London with a huge frog collection.”
Garcia created a cheerful atmosphere on her front porch in Claremont by making it a place where customers can pick up their orders. Garcia said she focuses on creating packaging that is aesthetically pleasing and sustainable.
Garcia does not ship any orders. If a nearby customer needs a package dropped off at their home, she will bike instead of driving to limit greenhouse gas emissions. When packaging up her orders, she does not hesitate to reuse Trader Joe’s or Sprouts recyclable bags, Garcia said.
Her favorite part of packing orders is writing handwritten notes to each of her customers. Garcia said she feels this is a way to connect with her customers and hopefully put smiles on their faces. It is her way of being an active member of her community during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Make something about your business unique to yourself so that it’s not just like every other business and try to be friendly and establish a relationship with your customers,” Garcia said.
Garcia enjoys meeting new people and learning about their stories. Through Maya’s Closet, she met one of her best friends, Shannon Noonan, another Instagram shop owner.
The two began to work closely together to help promote each other’s businesses. As both of their accounts grew, they started renting booths at farmer’s markets and flea markets to show off their Instagram shops in person.
“She has one of the biggest hearts I’ve ever encountered!” Noonan said. “When we threw our first pop-up event, she voluntarily helped me prepare the space and it was no easy task. She prices all of her items fairly and donates a majority of her profits to a variety of charities, which I find very admirable.”
When Garcia first started her account, she had no idea how large it would become. As it grew, she knew that she wanted to donate a portion of her profits. When the Black Lives Matter movement erupted last May, Garcia said she gave 50% of her profits to the cause. She has donated over $650 to the BLM Los Angeles chapter.
In January, Garcia switched her donations to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention after a classmate close to her died.
Garcia said she continues to give donations in hopes of spreading awareness to those around her.
Claire Judson, a childhood friend of Garcia’s who has helped with the business since it was started last spring, said she is amazed by how successful Maya’s Closet has grown to become.
“It has been incredible to see it grow into virtually a small business through Maya’s dedication, creativity and fashion sense,” Claire Judson said. “I also think that the way she utilizes the money she makes from Maya’s Closet as a way to give back to her community has been appreciated by a lot of people.”
Garcia chose to use part of her profits to pay for college. She will attend Lewis and Clark College, a small liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon in the fall.
She plans to major in psychology, get a marriage and family therapy degree and “hopefully continue with Maya’s Closet as long as I can and potentially at some point open a storefront to sell clothes,” Garcia said.
Ideally, she would like to open the shop somewhere in Claremont after she graduates from college. She has lived in Claremont for most of her life and said she loves the city wholeheartedly. Opening a storefront in the city where her clothing account first started is Garcia’s dream.
