Meet Mandy Anderson of Lake Effect Kitchen

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mandy Anderson. She and her team share their story with us below:

The founders of Lake Effect Foods and Lake Effect Kitchen, Mandy Anderson and Aaron Johnson of Grand Haven started this business for two purposes: to give people access to great food and to support and mentor students and young adults with different abilities in competitive employment skills.

Both Aaron and Mandy have children with autism spectrum disorder and serve in the autism advocacy community.

They believe that there is a place for everyone, no matter their ability, to contribute to the world, and hope to further the belief that everyone belongs through the work of Lake Effect Kitchen.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Food businesses are not high-profit enterprises even in good times, but during the covid crisis, things got even more difficult. Through hard work and some help from grants, we were able to keep our employees working so that they could continue to work toward their personal goals.

Since the covid crisis has eased, we have continued our growth and added a food truck to the mix. This gave us more visibility in the community since, being a ghost kitchen, many people had not seen what we do.

Being committed to an environment of competitive integrated employment, where disabled and non-disabled people work together as peers in an authentic and non-stigmatizing way has its challenges; we will not pay deviated wages, and some of our employees often need more coaching and retraining, and just more time to master skills, than a non-disabled workforce would need. This can be costly, so we began a nonprofit sister entity, Eat Well Do Good, to come alongside and help fund extra training needed for our employees to be successful.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Lake Effect Kitchen?
LEK is a ghost kitchen in Grand Haven providing meal prep and catering services. Our food is excellent and gets rave reviews.

We employ people with intellectual disabilities and hope to be a model that shows that they can contribute to the profitability of a solid food business and that they deserve the opportunity to have the dignity that comes with working and providing for themselves. I look forward to a time when people of all abilities naturally work together in all kinds of workplaces and live together in a fully-integrated community.

Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Sharing a meal with someone and listening to their story makes me happy. I also love seeing the pride on the faces of our employees who are meeting some big life goals for the first time in their lives — moving toward independence and living the life they want to live.

Contact Info:

• Website: LakeEffectKitchen.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/lakeeffectkitchen
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lakeeffectkitchen

Image Credits
Design Force Marketing