Revelstoke student champions sustainable fashion with clothes swap, mending workshop
Published 3:45 pm Monday, February 9, 2026
A Revelstoke Secondary School (RSS) student is championing sustainable fashion among local youth this month by organizing a clothing swap and mending workshop.
In the last year, 17-year-old Zara Amakor started taking an interest in alternatives to fast fashion and how to reduce textile waste. It happened after she found herself on the Garage Clothing bandwagon one month, where online shoppers buy and dispose of apparel without considering how to repurpose it.
Thinking about how she could become an agent of the change she wanted to see in her community and generation, Amakor scored an eight-week internship late last summer with the DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society.
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The Surrey-based charity helped her plan and budget for a sustainable fashion project she’s now bringing to RSS and Begbie View Elementary School this February, thanks to DIVERSEcity’s sponsorship and grant funding from Employment and Social Development Canada.
“I named my whole project the Green Thread, ‘green’ for environment and ‘thread’ for sustainability,” explained Amakor, who’s in Grade 11. “I want to create awareness about the environmental impact of fast fashion.”
To start, she’s running a clothing swap at RSS this Friday, Feb. 13, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., where high school students can bring and exchange their own garments on a rolling basis.
The following Saturday, Feb. 21, Amakor then runs a mending workshop from 12 to 2 p.m. over at Begbie View Elementary. Lessons will be co-led by Revelstoke’s Koreen Morrone, and participants will learn how to sew on buttons, fix seams and apply basic clothing alterations.
All materials will be provided by Amakor, along with snacks and free shirts, but she said participants are welcome to bring their own clothes for mending if desired. Though space is limited, adults may also join, along with anyone Grade 6 and up.
QR codes for signing up are available on posters at businesses across town, and Amakor plans to hand out free sewing kits as well for participants to continue practising their new skills at home.
“I’m trying to make it a lifestyle and habit for them,” she said. “It builds a sense of community and shared responsibility.”
Her focus on changing clothing consumption habits of others her age is meant to target the next generation of changemakers and trendsetters.
“I want to ensure long-term shifts to mindful habits,” she added. “The Green Thread wants the youth to spread a safe environmental future.”
Amakor said the project has helped push her out of her comfort zone, and taught her new life skills in communication, leadership, proposal writing and financial management.
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She clarified that she’s not trying to discourage people from buying clothes. Rather, her project means to demonstrate how we can offset our environmental footprint with textile waste by also utilizing upcycling, recycling and mending for the garments we already have.
“You have a ripped bed sheet? Don’t throw it away,” Amakor’s mother Amara suggested, saying we should more often consider bringing our used clothes to the thrift store.
Outside the Green Thread, Amakor devotes time to RSS’s leadership team, cadets and volunteering at the Revelstoke Library.
“She’s very involved at giving back to the community,” Amara added.
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