I was born in a small village in the Philippines, where families depended on remittances from abroad and seasonal work in the sugar cane fields. Many days I went to school barefoot, sometimes even hungry. At just seven years old, I began helping my family by selling laundry bars of soap at flea markets. When they didn’t sell, I learned an important lesson: to succeed, you must be creative. I added a needle and thread to each bar of soap and suddenly outsold the other merchants. At 13, I joined a band that performed for American soldiers in Vietnam and across Asia. That opportunity eventually brought me to the United States in 1973. Not long after, I worked in Alaska with the Alyeska Pipeline and later joined the U.S. Postal Service in 1977. While working at the Post Office in Virginia and attending school in 1980, I met my husband. After he completed his law degree, we moved to New York, where I finished my own education—graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in History, and later earning a Master’s degree in Education. Life then brought us to my husband’s hometown in rural Kentucky, a town of fewer than 4,000 people. There, I faced rejection when I applied to teach. The superintendent bluntly told me he would “rather hire the natives because there’s hardly any jobs to go around.” Though painful, I turned that rejection into fuel. I knew I was a good teacher—so good, in fact, that my practicum supervisor once recommended I be paid for my practicum, a first in that school’s history. Instead of giving up, I founded a post-secondary school to help workers displaced by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Many of them had spent their entire lives in sewing factories before losing their jobs. They were intimidated by traditional colleges, so I single-handedly designed and wrote the entire curriculum, syllabi, student contracts, and program of studies for new courses in paralegal studies, pharmacy tech, office management, and medical office management. These programs could be completed in as little as 30 credit hours, giving displaced workers a new path forward.  We placed our graduates in local pharmacies, school districts, doctor’s offices, lawyers’ offices, and other private offices. One of our students even went on to become a lawyer, and another of our students was elected to the office of County Judge Executive, the highest elected office in that county. Later, my husband and I opened restaurants and retail stores, employing hundreds of people between 2001 and 2012. In 2013, we settled back in South Carolina, and in 2014 we fell in love with Myrtle Beach. I became a realtor, walking the neighborhoods, learning the streets, and working to understand the needs of this city. I share my story because it is living proof of what faith, hope, and hard work can achieve.