Follow the trail of pink feathers and shimmering gold dust, and you will find yourself standing before Miss Marilyn Chivetta. With her flamboyant hot pink boa and dazzling jewelry, she is impossible to overlook when she strolls down the streets of Elba.

Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, she decided to relocate to Elba amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Accompanied by her son, Maverick, they embarked on a journey to their new home in Alabama.

Driven by their curiosity about a farm they had previously seen only in online photographs, the Chivetta family took a leap of faith. As they drove along a winding dirt road in a truck without air conditioning, doubts began to creep into their minds. However, as they emerged from the trees, a breathtaking clearing greeted their eyes, featuring an exquisite pond.

“We turn this corner and there’s the most beautiful pond I’ve ever seen in my life. It looked like a Norman Rockwell painting,” she recalled. The property fulfilled Miss Marilyn’s wildest dreams.

Reflecting on her journey, she said, “I turned and I looked at Maverick and I said: ‘This, this is destiny pond. This is where I’m meant to be. This my destiny.’”

Now a community philanthropist and fashion consultant, Chivetta has not always had a life of diamonds and riches. “Everyone talks about what I’ve done now. But where I came from to what I’ve accomplished has been a gut-wrenching experience,” she said.

“I was a magician and fire eater,” Chivetta said, “but a head-on collision in 1998 changed my life.”

Ten years ago, she faced destitution. Then, a pivotal decision to invest her last $300 in a box of jewelry turned her life around. That choice, she said, ultimately saved her life.

That box was filled with jewelry and accessories she priced at $5 each and sold through direct sales, using Facebook Live to promote the items to sell to her family and friends.

Today, she works with Paparazzi, a company with over 40,000 employees that sells costume jewelry for $5. She is a top sales consultant.

“My life in 2018 just exploded. After three months into Paparazzi, I could pay my bills,” she said. Chivetta now leads a team that she calls her “bombshells” who also sell for Paparazzi.

“Anyone can create their dream life using this $5 jewelry, which I realize sounds completely crazy, but it’s true,” she added. “I work really hard to create a life that I am madly in love with,” she said. “I know now that you can literally be anything you want to be. You can do anything you want to do.”

Chivetta said her team is a tight-knit family. “I work with women of all ages to help everyone live their most fabulous life,” she explained.

Today, she calls her Elba farm Golden Acres, a place where hope grows. Chivetta said she wants to use her struggles to make a difference. “Because I have been through all of these things, I can really relate with and help people.”

In addition to the farm, Chivetta now owns a building in downtown Elba where she hopes to train new team members in her jewelry business.

“That building will be a place for people to increase their confidence, find hope, find joy, and heal,” Chivetta said. The main goal for Chivetta is to create a space that can act as a catalyst for acts of kindness.

Just as the farm did, the building spoke to her. “There used to be a piece of plywood on the front,” she said. “That piece of plywood had my birthday on it. I was meant to have that building.”

She said she believes that money can indeed buy happiness when it is used for the good of others. “If I’m having a really bad day, I use my money to do something for someone else,” she explained.

Despite her success, Chivetta remains a small-town girl at heart. “I love relationships, hugs, kindness, and knowing people. You don’t get that in a big city.”

Last March marked her third year since she moved to Alabama. “I always dreamed of doing this in my 70s,” she said. But when the pandemic hit, I decided to go find the farm of my dreams.”

She said she is happy that destiny brought her to Elba. “The people here are not like anywhere else in the world. I’ve been all over. They care about you, they pray for you, and I know Maverick is already a part of Elba.”

Chivetta added, “For a real eccentric entrepreneur to come to the deep South and be accepted was just an answered prayer.”

As an only child and single mother, she said she hoped to become part of a community where they could forge meaningful connections and feel a sense of belonging. “I didn’t just want to live there. I wanted to be part of it.”

Today, she compares Elba to a diamond. “You know how you make a diamond. Elba is just like a diamond. It can be something beautiful and amazing. It just needs a little work.”

Mikailie Caulder, a Living Democracy student at Auburn University, spent the summer of 2023 living and learning in Elba, Alabama, as a Jean O’Connor Snyder Intern with the David Mathews Center for Civic Life. The nonprofit program, coordinated by the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts, prepares undergraduate college students for civic life through living-learning experiences.

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