KAFE Radio recognized a member of Christian Health Care Center’s care team, Dianne Anderson, as a Hometown Hero in November 2018. Dianne was nominated for this award by Tonja Myers, CHCC’s administrator, who has worked with her for many years. Below is the nomination letter, which explains why Dianne is so deserving of this recognition.
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Dianne Anderson is a nurse and instructor who works at Christian Health Care Center. Dianne’s son, Elijah, and I would like to nominate her for Hometown Hero.
I have worked with Dianne for nearly 20 years, first in Bellingham and now in Lynden. She is well known for her nursing care, which always leads with honesty and compassion. Dianne is also the nursing assistant class instructor at CHCC and has been recognized as one of Washington’s most successful nursing assistant instructors. She is a CPR instructor and also teaches nursing assistant classes at Whatcom Community College.
In addition, Dianne and her mother spend many hours each week collecting, sorting, and organizing clothing and supplies and managing a “Share Room” at the Laurel Baptist Church in Ferndale. They collect upwards of 40 bags of donations every single week. This Share Room allows anyone to come and pick up items for their house for free. No charge and no questions asked at all. Dianne has also organized a pantry at CHCC for any employees who find themselves in a tight financial time and need some help with food and household supplies.
Over the years, I have seen Dianne go out of her way to provide care for family, friends and acquaintances, often traveling to their homes to help them out. She does all this, and more, while maintaining more-than-full-time employment as a nurse and instructor, and going to school herself to further her nursing degree.
Dianne’s son, Elijah Anderson, works as a nursing assistant at CHCC. He writes the following about his mom:
Dianne Anderson is a wonderful and strong woman. I know this because I have been lucky enough to have her as my mother for the past 30 years! I am also extremely lucky to know everything that she has done for me and others in her life so far. To understand a bit about my mother, you need to understand how her life has been — well, at least what I remember from it. I was born with a father who was not too nice of a person; he was verbally and physically abusive to my mother. These are things that could turn anyone into a hateful, spiteful person. But not my mother. My mother remained strong and always kept the will to care for others above and beyond the duty that anyone would expect. My mother started out as a nursing assistant somewhere around 1986, and she became an LPN around 1997 or 1998. I can remember the long days she would have at work, but all I would ever hear is how great the day was because she was able to help someone walk again, or that she was so happy that someone was able to go home and be with their family again. All around, my mother’s life has been focused on making others happy and strong.
My mother is the type of person that I want to be. Kind, generous, loving, helpful and, most of all, a selfless person. She is the type of person who would give you the clothes off of her back so that you would not have to be cold. She would give you the food on her plate so you would not be hungry… I know, she has done it for me several times. Having someone like that in my life has not only negated all of the bad things in my childhood, but it has also given me a sense of goodness and caring that I hope to pass along to my children. My mother is amazing, and I am only the man I am today because of how wonderful she has been.
Elijah and I would be deeply honored to have Dianne Anderson recognized as our Hometown Hero.
Tonja Myers, Administrator
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