New Mexico

Goodwill Industries of New Mexico bringing thrift store, job services to Carlsbad

Published

2 years ago

February 18, 2024

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Goodwill Industries of New Mexico bringing thrift store, job services to Carlsbad

Store plans ribbon cutting at end of February and grand opening in March

About 17.6% of New Mexicans lived in poverty as of 2022, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

That’s the fourth highest poverty rate in the nation, after Virginia at 17.9%, 18.6%in Louisiana and 19.1% in Mississippi.

That rate equated to 364,725 people in New Mexico living below the federal poverty line, defined last year by an individual income of $14,580, gradually increasing to $50,560 a year for a family of eight.

More: Demolition of Carlsbad’s Executive Suites the latest in property’s vast and varied history

Poverty can put people at risk for mental illness, chronic disease, higher mortality and lower life expectancy, read a report from the U.S. Center for Disease Prevent and Health Promotion.

“Poverty is a multifaceted issue that will require multipronged approaches to address. Strategies that improve the economic mobility of families may help to alleviate the negative effects of poverty,” the report read.

In Carlsbad, a statewide organization is bringing one possible solution to Pierce Street, where Goodwill Industries of New Mexico plans to open a thrift store by the end of February.

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Construction at the location, 1108 W. Pierce St. was underway with a ribbon cutting scheduled for Feb. 29.

The building will be 23,000 square feet and occupy the space previously housing Union Home and Industrial.

The store will employ 18 local workers, said Goodwill Chief Executive Officer Shauna Castle, and will sell donated, lightly used home goods and clothes to fund the nonprofit’s free workforce programs also held at the location.

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The Carlsbad store will be Goodwill’s 18th location in New Mexico, and if it’s successful Castle said another could be opened in Hobbs.

Goodwill already has stores in Chaves and Curry counties in eastern New Mexico, along with six other counties in the northwest region of the state.

The organization’s services are also available in every other New Mexico County, except Doña Ana, Otero, Lincoln, Sierra, Grant, Luna and Hidalgo counties in the southwest region.

More: Heatwave threatens New Mexico green chile crop. Local stores keep roasting iconic pepper.

Goodwill’s programs put 1,550 people into jobs as of 2023, Castle said, and helped 21,000 others through its other services.

“We’re really excited to be able to come to Carlsbad,” Castle said. “We want to be sure we’re serving the entire state.

Chief Services Officer Sesha Lee said Goodwill’s “Good Jobs” program will help find jobs through the Carlsbad location for anyone 16 and older.

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She said as Goodwill’s operations get started in the city, these programs will be tailored to the unique needs of the community.

That will also include various worker and life skills training, Lee said, and support services for veterans including rent help for homeless vets.

Goodwill presently offers training for production assistants for TV and film, along with other job readiness programs, a reintegration program for unhoused veterans and employment aid for low income seniors aged 50 and up.

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“Employment is a need across the board,” Lee said. “Services will continue to be developed, customized things for particular industries.”

In Carlsbad, that could include help finding construction jobs, work in the oilfield or even at restaurants in the city.

Castle said Goodwill executives planned to meet with Carlsbad and Eddy County officials and business leaders in the coming weeks to determine what is needed in the community and how the organization can meet demand.

“Through our services, people can rise up out of poverty,” Castle said. “While there are some great jobs in the oilfield, a lot of people are still not finding jobs.”

She Goodwill was also interested in partnering with Southeast New Mexico College, which recently established its independence from the New Mexico State University system, in an apparent move to focus on workforce training.

“That would be a relationship we would want to develop,” Castle said. “There is this big shift from the four-year degree to the trades. It’s how do we bridge that gap.”

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on the social media platform X.

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New Mexico

New Mexico deserves speedier game commission appointments

Published

6 hours ago

January 9, 2026

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New Mexico deserves speedier game commission appointments

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New Mexico

What bills have been filed for New Mexico’s 2026 legislative session?

Published

18 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

What bills have been filed for New Mexico’s 2026 legislative session?

The governor sets the agenda for the session, including for the budget, so here is what they are looking at so far.

SANTA FE, N.M. — As the regular session of the New Mexico Legislature is set to begin Jan. 20, lawmakers have already filed dozens of bills.

Bills include prohibiting book bans at public libraries and protections against AI, specifically the distribution of sensitive and “Deepfake” images

Juvenile justice reform is, again, a hot topic. House Bill 25 would allow access to someone’s juvenile records during a background check if they’re trying to buy a gun.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham sets the agenda and puts forth the proposed budget lawmakers will address during the session. The governor is calling for lawmakers to take up an $11.3 billion budget for the 2027 fiscal year, which is up 4.6% from current spending levels.

Where would that money go? More than $600 million would go to universal free child care. Meanwhile, more than $200 million would go to health care and to protect against federal funding cuts.

There is also $65 million for statewide affordable housing initiatives and $19 million for public safety.

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New Mexico

Understanding New Mexico’s data center boom | Opinion

Published

1 day ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Understanding New Mexico’s data center boom | Opinion

Paul Gessing, Rio Grande Foundation
| Las Cruces Sun-News

After years of failure to land a “big fish” business for New Mexico’s economy (or effectively use the oil and gas revenues to grow the economy) Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham with the help of her Economic Development Secretary Rob Black have lured no fewer than three large data centers to New Mexico. These data centers are being built to serve the booming world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and they will have profound impacts on New Mexico.

It is our view that having these data centers locate in New Mexico is better than having them locate elsewhere. While we have many differences of opinion with this governor, we are pleased to see her get serious about growing and diversifying New Mexico’s oil-dependent economy albeit quite late in her second term.

Sadly, the governor and legislature have chosen not to use broad based economic reforms like deregulation or tax cuts to improve New Mexico’s competitiveness. But, with the failure of her “preferred” economic development “wins” like Maxeon and Ebon solar both of which the governor announced a few years ago, but haven’t panned out, the focus on a more realistic strategy is welcome and long overdue.

Currently, three new data centers are slated to be built in New Mexico:

Oracle’s Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa with an investment of $165 billion.
Project Zenith slated to be built in Roswell amounts to a $11.7 billion investment.
New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. While the overall investment is unclear, the energy requirement is the largest of the three at 7 gigawatts (that’s seven times the power used by the City of San Francisco).

What is a data center? Basically, they are the real-world computing infrastructure that makes up the Internet. The rise of AI requires vast new computing power. It is critical that these facilities have uninterrupted electricity.

That electricity is going to be largely generated by traditional sources like natural gas and possibly nuclear. That contravenes New Mexico’s Energy Transition Act of 2019 which was adopted by this Gov. and many of the legislators still in office. Under the Act electrical power emissions are supposed to be eliminated in a few years.

With the amount of money being invested in these facilities and the simple fact that wind and solar and other “renewable” energy sources aren’t going to get the job done. In 2025 the Legislature passed and MLG signed HB 93 which allows for the creation of “microgrids” that won’t tax the grid and make our electricity more expensive, but the ETA will have to be amended or ignored to provide enough electricity for these data centers. There’s no other option.

New Mexicans have every right to wonder why powerful friends of the governor can set up their own natural gas microgrids while the rest of us face rising costs and decreased reliability from so-called “renewables.” Don’t get me wrong, having these data centers come to New Mexico is an economic boon.

But it comes tempered with massive subsidies including a 30-year property tax exemption and up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds. New Mexico is ideally suited as a destination for these data centers with its favorable climate and lack of natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. We shouldn’t be giving away such massive subsidies.

Welcoming the data center boom to New Mexico better than rejecting them and pushing them to locate in other states. There is no way to avoid CO2 emissions whether they happen here or somewhere else. But, there are questions about both the electricity demand and subsidies that must be addressed as New Mexico’s data center boom begins.

What will the Legislature, radical environmental groups, and future governors of our state do to hinder (or help) bring these data centers to our State? That is an open question that depends heavily on upcoming statewide elections. It is important that New Mexicans understand and appreciate these complicated issues.

Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility

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