Amber Anderson has a knack for helping to rebuild lives and create a sense of community.
The longtime New Westminster resident was recently named New Westminster’s Citizen of the Year.
Anderson, owner of Amber’s Choice restaurant on 12th Street, is president of the West End Business Association and one of the main organizers of the annual 12th Street Music Festival.
A resident of the Moody Park neighbourhood, Anderson remembers when 12th Street merchants had to contend with issues on the street like prostitution and graffiti.
“It’s really come a long way,” she said. “I think it’s the next up-and-comer. It’s a great little area.”
Anderson, a professional chef, has spent many years combining her love of cooking and her passion for helping those in need. Many people spend Christmas dinner with their families, but for more than a decade Anderson has spent Christmas Day at St. Barnabas Church, where she cooks up the annual feast.
“I really like doing it. I get a lot of pleasure out it,” Anderson said. “There’s a nice family feel there, everyone sits down and has a lovely Christmas dinner. There’s a lot of people who wouldn’t have it.”
Along with St. Barnabas Church, Anderson has also cooked Christmas dinner for several years at the Living Room program in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
While Anderson has made her mark in New Westminster, she’s also spent years helping marginalized people living in the Downtown Eastside. For the past seven years, she’s served as the executive director and heath chef/head instructor at HAVE Culinary Training Society, a program that seeks to help address poverty and unemployment in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside by providing culinary training.
“In the last seven years, we have trained just over 700 people. We give them cooking skills and then get them employment,” she said. “It is extremely successful.”
Many of the people have multiple barriers, including health and addiction issues. With their training, the students have been able to get a variety of jobs in all positions, including restaurant managers.
“It’s for all ages,” Anderson said. “I didn’t want to turn anyone away. Anyone who needs help is welcome.”
In 2010, Anderson was nominated for a YWCA Vancouver Women of Distinction Award in the Community Building category for her work with the HAVE Culinary Training Society – a position that combines a love of cooking with her compassion for those less fortunate.
“We have got about 74 per cent that are still working,” she said. “This is getting people off the street, out of transition houses. It’s really powerful. To see people when they walk in the doors, a lot of them have fallen through the cracks, they don’t trust anyone – it takes a lot to build up their confidence. It’s amazing the transformation after the eight weeks.”
Anderson “blames” her students for her ongoing passion to help those who may be struggling.
“It’s all my students’ fault,” she laughs. “To see them from the first day walking in and the transformation on the last day walking out or coming back with their very first paycheque or their own apartment – it’s overwhelming.”
Anderson said she was shocked to be named New Westminster’s Citizen of the Year.
“There’s so many people that were nominated that are worthy of it,” she said. “I really, really didn’t think I was going to win. There are so many great people who have done so much good stuff for New West.”
Anderson was so convinced that she wasn’t going to win that she didn’t even tell her daughter she was attending the Platinum Awards dinner.
“My daughter got mad at me. She phoned me when we were there – she said, ‘You’ve been nominated, why didn’t you tell me?’ I said, ‘I am not going to win,’” she recalled. “When they called my name, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I was so surprised.”
Anderson’s efforts in advocating for 12th Street, cooking for those in need at Christmas and helping to put people with barriers to employment back to work may have earned her the distinction of being Citizen of the Year, but Anderson said she’s the lucky one.
“I am a very lucky girl because I get to do what I love to do,” she said. “I get up in the morning. When you’re smiling going into work, that’s pretty incredible.”
