Katherine Rivera: The Girl Across the Street Who Made Magic From Waste 🌿✨

In a time long ago, in an apartment with chipped plaster and no light (just one lightbulb flickering), a little girl named Katherine was imagining a world where beauty could come from waste. 🌱💔

My story isn’t cute—it’s real. At 12 years old, I saw my mom piece together our lives using clothing from thrift stores and old takeout containers. We were the family mentioned at PTA meetings (and not in a good way). "Can you believe, they can’t even afford trash bags; they use grocery sacks." 🛍️😢

But those grocery sacks? They became my first art supply. While other kids were getting Barbies, I got dumpster dived fabric remnants and a dollar store glue gun. I stayed up past midnight with raw fingertips developing coffee filters into lace and plastic water bottles into jewelry. Each time I cut with scissors I was doing a middle finger to a world that told me we would never be enough. ✂️🖕

And then we went through The Winter. No heat. No hot water. Just a mountain of medical bills after my father's accident. I wore the same hoodie for 47 days in a row (yes, I counted). But, in the stretched pockets of that hoodie? Sketches. Pages and pages of design where soda can tabs became chandeliers and ripped jeans became handbags. 💡👖

Fast forward through blood, sweat, and lots of tears: now I am the Renewable Materials Designer that people refer to as "the MacGyver of sustainability." Vogue magazine featured my dress made from 200 Starbucks sleeves. A-listers are asking for my "Trash to Treasure" collections. But underneath it all, I am still that girl across the street that still believes there is magic in what others have discarded. 🗑️💫

So I offer you a promise: No toxic positivity. No fake "just manifest it!" bullshit. Just raw, gritty hope—and proof that even the most discarded (and broken) things (and people) can be beautiful again. 💔✨

P.S. I still have that glue gun. There are some battles worth fighting sticky-fingered. 🔫😉