She looks out at a sea of smiling happy faces from a crowd captivated with her humor and her incredible story. A strong-willed, jovial character with an almost-unbelievable, yet triumphant past, Magie Cook is a successful business woman, an in-the-trenches philanthropist, a real-life hero, and a Mexican immigrant to the United States.

She worked her way up from the bottom, following a path of hard work and seizing opportunities presented to her that neither those at the top nor bottom can deny. In doing so, she amassed a sizeable fortune, and then she chose to give it all away. She chose to uplift the lives of those less fortunate, both in Mexico and here in the U.S. She chose to embody the values that she believes in.

Magie's Storywww.youtube.com

While every American can accept the fact that the country has been defined and shaped by waves of immigration, the current political climate is being influenced by an administration that is willfully ignoring the cold, hard facts of America's immigrants in favor of spreading an inflammatory and false narrative.

New energy and brave new voices emerging on the left, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are standing up for the truth by calling attention to the fact that while the administration is making unfounded, incendiary claims of illegal immigration, it is also systematically fighting to dismantle the paths to legal immigration: ending the diversity visa lottery, defunding DPS, ending DACA for dreamers, and ending family reunification.

At a time where children are being separated from their parents and sent to black-box detention centers at the southern borders, and the future course of American immigration policy is unclear, Magie's story affirms many facts about immigration, including the fact that economic output grows at a faster rate with more immigrants. She is a true-life migrant hero, and now more than ever, it's time for the country to take notice of her.

In the Beginning

Magie's early years were as chaotic as they were humble. The daughter of a man from Beckley, West Virginia, and a Navajo woman, she was raised in Central Mexico in an orphanage run by her parents. Having eight children of their own, her parents adopted around 60 more children, raising all of them together as a part of their missionary work.

As one can imagine, it wasn't exactly a carefree childhood. With the sheer number of children, and an intentional effort by her parents to not show favoritism, the crowded, overwhelmed environment certainly bears some of the responsibility for making Magie who she is today.

Early mornings were routine at the orphanage where the children would help prepare the large meals, and tend to their gardens and livestock. They slept in dorms full of bunk beds and dined alongside each other at long tables. After many years, Magie now accepts the hardships of her unusual upbringing and can appreciate it for what it was.

Strong and athletic, she was recruited to play basketball for the Mexican national team, but just days before hearing back from them, she broke her collarbone and wasn't able to take the opportunity. But, she's certain it all happened as it was meant to, because four months later, her parents loaded all the children onto buses headed to the U.S., and while playing basketball at a picnic, she was offered the chance to play for the University of Charleston's women's basketball team on scholarship.

Through this chance encounter, she started at UC in 1998, playing not just one, but three sports, improving her English skills, and earning a degree in interior design, that would lead to her first job with Ridgeview Home & Design Center.

Her Rise

A Summer Salsa Contest at Charleston's Capitol Market in 2004, one that her friends insisted she enter despite the fact that she wasn't exactly thrilled to do so, led to her unanimous victory. A simple fresh mix of Roma tomatoes, sweet onions, cilantro, garlic, lime juice, wax peppers, jalapenos, and a sauce made from dried chiles, her secret ingredient, the straightforward salsa delighted the judges.

Fans of her salsa encouraged her to begin selling it, and after a cash infusion of $800, she began her small business, selling to local shops at Capitol Market. From her home kitchen, she was hand-chopping ingredients and making her salsa by the gallons. She slowly started taking on more employees and expanding into different shops.

Wanting to bring in new customers, she made a list of retailers, placing smaller supermarkets at the top, and the big chains at the bottom. In a time where fresh products were a new concept, she found the small markets unreceptive and decided to flip her list upside down. At the top was Whole Foods Market, the largest natural and organic food retailer in the U.S.

A complete novice to cold calling, she left a message for one of their buyers, and to her amazement, she got a callback. They were interested in trying her salsa. She made a fresh batch, loaded her car, and took off to Maryland to meet with their execs. At that point, she and her crew were basically running a side hustle to her main job, making hundreds of pounds of salsa a week. Whole Foods was ready to order 8,000 pounds of salsa every week.

Seeing the opportunity that was presenting itself, Magie quit her design job to focus strictly on "Maggie's Salsa". Her customer list would expand beyond Whole Foods to include other powerhouses, like Walmart and Kroger. She would develop a product line with different salsa flavors and various fresh queso dips. New technologies emerged that allowed fresh products to be shelf-stable for up to 60 days without needing added preservatives.

Bought first by Garden Fresh in 2014, the line of "Maggie's Salsa" changed hands again when Campbell's Soup Co. bought Garden Fresh in a deal worth $231 million. It became a part of Campbell's Fresh division, with the intention of growing its fresh foods division into a $1 billion enterprise.

Maggie's Salsawww.youtube.com

Giving Back

In a day where most of U.S. policy is directed by monied interests and business is primarily focused on personal gains, Magie Cook is an entrepreneurial outlier. While Campbell's sought to increase its share of the market of consumers buying high-quality fresh products like "Maggie's Salsa", Magie turned her attention to those less fortunate.

She chose to direct the entirety of the financial windfall she made during the acquisition of her company to the team of great people she had behind her through the rise of the company and back to her roots, directing funds to Mexican orphanages. For Magie, it was not enough to just send it off.

Having first-hand experience of hunger, and knowing that children are at risk of being trafficked by powerful drug cartels, she had to ensure that the money was used to feed and better the lives of the children. She found herself in Mexico, pleading for military assistance, armed, and personally protecting orphans caught in the middle of a war between the army and the cartels.

Now a minister at Renaissance Unity Interfaith Spiritual Fellowship, she has committed her money and life to serve others. Throughout her incredible rise, she realized that spirituality is at the center of it all. When someone grows up with very little, they have to take stock of themselves more deliberately to properly assess their own value and worth.

Magie knows that amassing and hoarding a fortune is not what gives a person value. For her, personal value is created by directly enriching the lives of others. The people that she can help to grow, return the favor by helping her to grow too. Instead of a life of business, she now lives with a greater purpose.

Dedicating her time and efforts to uplifting and inspiring others, she lives a simple life, helping the homeless population in her current home city of Detroit and coaching individuals on how to be successful in business and life. To share her story and inspire a larger audience, in 2013, she authored and self-published a book titled "Mindful Success: How to Use Your Mind to Transform Your Life: From Orphanage to Millionaire," a title that sums up her own transformative journey.

Magie In Actionwww.youtube.com

Magie Cook stands in the middle of a unique crossroads, one shared by a small percentage of the population, having personally experienced the lows and highs life can dole out. This puts her in an interesting and powerful position, primed to encourage others to live their best life. And, while she may be an extraordinary figure, the lessons she has learned along the way, lessons about business, people, strength, spirituality, and life, are universal.