“Hi, my name is Amber Walters. I grew up in Broad Channel. I have lived there my whole life. Growing up in Broad Channel, you kind of know everyone. It’s similar to, like, Rockaway and Breezy; it’s just like a small-town feel where your neighbors are gonna be your right-hand supporters for everything, and you’re gonna bump into them everywhere you go, and somehow everything is always gonna be full circle; you’re gonna hear stories about, like, everyone in your town and things like that. Growing up, I was involved in the church community and the athletic community. My parents both were coaches for the BCAC, which is the Broad Channel Athletic Club, and so growing up, my parents would be coaching sports for me and all my friends. So it was pretty cool; we would always be hanging out there with other kids my age and their families. We grew up going on trips with everyone; I grew up working from a young age at local businesses. I worked at the Bungalow Bar. I still work there to this day,” Walters said with a smile.
Amber and I have known each other for a long time. We both attended Scholars’ Academy for middle school, lifeguarded together for nearly a decade, and are now back at Scholars’ where we work part-time as substitute teachers. We spoke on our lunch break. “I find myself sitting in the same place we went to middle school. I’m sitting at a desk where I once was a student, and now people look to me to be a teacher, and that’s an eye-opening experience,” she told me. I have to agree; it is certainly surreal going back to middle school as a 23-year-old.
Walters returned to Broad Channel last year after graduation from Clemson. “Going away to a university for four years out of state was so much fun; it was a dream of mine but coming back home and learning to reinsert myself and, like, re-find my footing in this town has been something that is really hard to do…I guess I’m just so much older now that people look at me like I’m older now.” She laughed, but I get it. “That’s something that I’m just starting to realize. It’s like I’m not a 16-year-old girl anymore. Like I’m a young adult, and I almost need to be like a mentor to the youth in a way. I need to start setting down the right stones for my future because, obviously, I want to have a bright future, so it all starts with what I’m doing now and the ways that I’m trying to make a difference. Even if it’s small, but I’ve realized–I’ve been talking to older adults who have built Broad Channel, the community itself: they started engaging themselves in things at the ages of 20 to 25, so I guess it’s like our generation’s time to start stepping up and building in the community and just helping out in the littlest ways we can.”
Walters just started a graduate program and has spent most of her adult life involved with organizations from ClemsonLife, Special Olympics, Best Buddies to AmpSurf. “Right now, I’m going back to get my master’s in occupational therapy… I want to go into occupational therapy because I want to be able to help individuals kind of have a voice and be able to be heard and be able to express themselves. I feel like there’s a lot of stigma on people with disabilities, and I guess–crazy to say–but there’s almost like a lack of empathy that our generation has for individuals who were dealt a certain hand of cards. So I want to make things open and welcoming for everyone and just be supportive.
“I guess it’s always been something that’s been involved in my life pretty heavily. My cousin has special needs, and just growing up, being aware of things like that, like how she uses a monitor to communicate with us… but I didn’t start volunteering or anything like that until high school. Going to New York City Public Schools for most of my academic history really opened my eyes to how many disabilities there are and just how many kids do need a little bit more help. Or seeing emotional outbursts, it’ll open your eyes to a bunch that’s not always–that’s like censored when you do go to private schools. Um, but I started volunteering in high school with Esopus. I know a lot of people are familiar, but if they’re not familiar, it’s, a retreat place upstate, and they host camps for individuals with disabilities. It’s super cool; anyone [over 16] can volunteer…It’s super rewarding, and it allows people to go out and have fun themselves, but also be able to take a load off–their families and their caretakers–because they’re going away for a bit and being able to just experience little things that are so common to us but aren’t so common to them.
“I guess it [growing up in Broad Channel] made me realize how it takes a village to raise a family, and I think–there’s so many memories of like, Hurricane Sandy happening and like, just the years after that of The Channel and, really anyone locally coming together in order to build it back up, and there’s so many instances where–it’s just like funny songs or funny moments that I talk about with my friends and my family now and it’s like, those were such hard times, but we were able to find the light in the tunnel and we all were able to depend on each other. And we were so young, like, we were how old at that time? Like 10 years old? So it’s like we couldn’t fully process it but now looking back on it as an adult I can’t even fathom what my parents were going through, not only to gut a house, but to have to say goodbye to so many relics and so many personal belongings…there’s so many other people that I know who lost everything and to see them now and just to see like how, you know, and it’s the case too with the first responders who have passed away–like our town, it shows how everyone comes together and it truly does all depend on the community and the community makes it all. I value that our community is led by faith and love, by our religion. It’s something that definitely holds a lot of our morals and teaches–hopefully teaches everyone the virtues and good ways to live. Like we all have certain vocations that we should follow, we need to try to do our best to meet them, and we should be kind and respectful along the way.
“There’s this quote that my teacher did bring up in school, and it opened my eyes to everything, so honestly I wanted to talk about it. So it’s, ‘Everything was made by imperfect people. Don’t hesitate to contribute because you think you aren’t valuable enough. Your ideas, your effort, and your voice matter. You don’t have to be perfect to make a difference.’ and I think that is just something that a lot of people are scared to do at first, and I’m definitely one of those individuals as well, like I was scared to do this [interview], but I decided to take a shot and see where it goes.” I sure am glad she did.
Walters added, “So I guess just do things, and try to make a difference, and try to be inspiring, and treat people with love and respect.”
