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TASK keeps cooking
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New CEO Flynn draws on lifelong values of service and community By MiCHele AlPeRin
Amy Flynn, the new chief executive officer of the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, grew up poor on a dairy farm in rural Ohio, with early memories of an absence of heat during the cold winters. She remembers “going to bed at night and my mom stacking blanket after blanket on top of me and waking up in the morning and seeing my breath.” But an ethic of communal sharing trumped poverty in her farming community. “Even though our family didn’t have a lot, we never had so little that we didn’t have something to give back,” Flynn recalls. “We canned all summer to have food for the winter and shared some of that food with others who had less.” This commitment to communal sharing was exemplified for Flynn by her grandmother, “a person of service, who was always giving back to the community.” Flynn says that the big meals her grandmother cooked for everyone at harvest time are reminiscent of TASK’s mission and the critical involvement of volunteers in realizing it. Not only does TASK provide food for the hungry six days a week at its main location, it also gives more than 4,000 volunteers a year a chance
to give back to their community. “TASK has a doctrine of radical hospitality. It takes me back to growing up—neighbors helping neighbors,” Flynn says. Flynn, a resident of Ewing, started in her new role on Jan. 21 after being named to the position by the nonprofit’s board of trustees earlier in the month. She replaces Joyce Campbell, who announced her plans to retire last summer after more than eight years at the helm. TASK is one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the Mercer County area, providing free meals for those who are hungry, including the homeless and working poor. Flynn’s career in fund development and leadership at missiondriven organizations has given her many varied opportunities to carry forth the tradition of communal support to improve the lives of families. For both staff and volunteers, she says, “you have the opportunity to make that kind of impact every day, to go to the fringe where people are in need, meet them there, support them there, and, at best, provide opportunities for them to move forward.” But Flynn’s career actually started in education, not development. It took a while until “the planets aligned, and I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.” Only in her late 30s, while living in Cochocton, Ohio, and working See TASK, Page 5
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Gov. Phil Murphy (left) with Plainsboro’s Peter Cantu at the township’s annual reorganization meeting on Jan. 2, 2025. For the first time in more than three decades Cantu is not mayor.
The end of an era Peter Cantu celebrated for his years of service as Plainsboro mayor By Bill SAnseRVinO
For the first time since the early 1990s, the mayor’s gavel went to a new person in Plainsboro Township. Peter Cantu, 84, who has served as an elected member of township committee since the 1970s, announced in December that he was taking his hat out of the ring as a choice for township mayor. He did say that he will continue to serve as a
member of Township Committee until his term ends in December 2026. Gov. Phil Murphy was on hand at the township reorganization meeting on Jan. 2 to recognize Cantu’s tenure as New Jersey’s longest-serving mayor. “Great evening in Plainsboro celebrating... Peter Cantu, who has selflessly served his community for the past 50 years,” said Murphy in a social media post. “Congratulations on an amazing run—and good luck with your remaining two years on the Plainsboro Township Committee.” Also at the meeting was Princeton Mayor Mark Freda. In a social media post he comSee CANTU, Page 3
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