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Learning through culture and dance
Incumbents win local elections BY BILL SANSERVINO
BY DAN AUBREY
“I bring the culture of students into the curriculum through the arts—storytelling, dance, and music,” says Liliana Attar as she prepares to return to the classroom via Young Audiences of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Based on Forrestal Road in Plainsboro, Young Audiences is a nonprofit education program founded in 1973. The organization uses the arts as a means to create educational experiences that engage students beyond traditional training. In Attar’s case, it could be putting rhythm in arithmetic or using motion to motivate learning—all the while keeping close to the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards and National Core Arts Standards. During a recent discussion in her Lawrenceville kitchen, the Argentina-born Attar provides some examples of work by using her ongoing work in the multi-ethnic and lingual Trenton. “One of the teachers was workSee YOUNG AUDIENCES, Page 7
Sarah Steward, the new CEO of Lawrence-based nonprofit Homefront, with her predecessor, Connie Mercer.
Steward fights on the front line against homelessness BY REBEKAH SCHROEDER
Sarah Steward has big shoes to fill. There is no question about that for the person chosen to take over from HomeFront’s longtime CEO and founder, Connie Mercer, who led the nonprofit organization in combating family homelessness and poverty for 31 years. But Steward naturally stepped into them, bringing with her a recognition
of the task ahead, as well as a message of timeless importance—rather than focus on ‘replacing’ Mercer, Steward had already been working alongside her to fill stomachs across Mercer County for seven years, equally nourishing minds and spirits as HomeFront’s COO. HomeFront, based in Lawrence Township, announced Mercer’s transition back in March. In an April interview with the Lawrence Gazette,
the pioneer behind the area’s first family shelter shared her intentions to pursue “bigger picture issues,” such as legislative reforms, before passing the torch. Following a national search for the best candidate to succeed Mercer, the HomeFront Board of Trustees “unanimously” circled back to the COO, a Ewing native who joined the team in 2016. When Steward began See STEWARD, Page 4
Better Health Program
Rediscover your Mind, Body & Spirit in Retirement 609-584-5900 rwjbh.org/hamiltonjoinbetterhealth
There were few surprises at the polls when came to local races at in this years election on Nov, 8. The incumbents took all races for municipal government and the West Windsor-Plainsboro Board of Education. Plainsboro featured contested races for two open seats on the Township Committee and one seat on the WW-P School Board. All results reported below are unofficial as of Nov. 21. In the contest for two open threeyear seats on the Township Committee, incumbent Democrats Edmund Yates (3,848 votes) and David Bander (3,913 votes) defeated their lone challenger—Republican Kristin Santizo (1,390 votes). The re-election of Yates and Bander means that the Democrats will continue to hold a 5-0 lock on the Township Committee. Meanwhile, in the race for a Plainsboro seat on the School Board, incumbent Robin Zovich (2,581 votes) defeated challenger Bill Beecroft (1,710 votes) to win re-election to a new three-year term. In West Windsor, there was no election for mayor or council this year, and candidates were running See ELECTION, Page 3
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