After eight and a half years, Cranbury resident steps down as director of soup kitchen.
By: Lacey Korevec
Peter Wise’s routine is about to change.
For the past eight and a half years, he’s been leaving his South Main Street home at 9 a.m. to get to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen by 9:30. Some days, he swings by neighbors’ houses to pick up clothing or food donations they have left out for him to bring along.
But Monday marks Mr. Wise’s first official day of retirement and the morning will be filled with mixed emotions. Among those will be fear and anxiety, he said, but first and foremost, gratitude, for the eight and a half years he was able to spend as director of TASK, feeding the hungry and helping the poor.
"I’m just very grateful for having had the opportunity," he said. "I’ll be sitting there Monday, March 5 feeling very grateful."
In November, Mr. Wise announced his plans to leave TASK and retire. As director, he has worked mostly on the administrative end of things, but said he’s going to miss working with volunteers and talking with patrons the most.
"There’s lots of other stuff I get involved with fundraising, meetings, reports and that’s all the necessary part of the job," he said during a break from work at the Soup Kitchen. "But my favorite part is interacting with people, whether they’re patrons who come here to eat, students at the school, volunteer tutors or volunteers who help us serve meals."
Like a restaurant owner wandering into the dining room to see that everything is going well, Mr. Wise said he walks around the cafeteria daily, welcoming new faces and visiting with old friends.
"People have interesting lives and interesting stories," he said. "You hear lots of different stories down here. We also know it’s very rewarding that we’re making a difference in people’s lives."
TASK, located at 72 ½ Escher St. in Trenton, is a nonprofit organization that offers free lunch and dinner to those in need Monday through Friday, as well as an adult educational program. Mr. Wise said there are approximately 85 students currently studying at TASK and about 55 volunteer tutors who work with them on a daily basis. The building also features a computer lab, where patrons use the Internet to print out resumes and search job listings. There are also two full-time social workers who help people find housing, employment and health services.
"That’s all very rewarding to see all that’s going on and talk to people and see that we’re actually helping people in very important ways," Mr. Wise said.
And Mr. Wise said he is proud that the services TASK has to offer have steadily increased since 1982, when the organization was first established, much of which happened during Mr. Wise’s tenure. In the past eight and a half years, the meal service has expanded to serve twice as many patrons as it once did. He said the number of students who attend TASK’s educational services have more than tripled. And the organization is currently undergoing an expansion.
A 3,500-square-foot section is being added to the 7,000-square-foot facility, he said. The additional space will be used to expand the kitchen, increase storage space and provide more office space for staff members. While he is excited about the changes, Mr. Wise said he wishes TASK did not have to exist at all, let alone need to increase its space and services.
"Oh, it is most unfortunate that we need to do these things," he said. "That we need to be growing a soup kitchen to make it larger, that the need for our services continues to grow, that poverty is on the increase in Trenton. But I’m gratified by the support that the region and the surrounding communities have provided to TASK."
He is especially thankful to residents of Cranbury, who he said have made a great effort in helping poverty through clothing and food donations, financial gifts and by volunteering.
"I’m particularly appreciative of financial donations, clothing donations, the hygiene bag, collections, the church members who generously come down to volunteer," he said. "Cranbury has really done a lot to support me and the work down here."
Before starting at the Soup Kitchen, Mr. Wise worked for 36 years in the aerospace field. After 45 years of working between that and his time at TASK, Mr. Wise said he plans to spend a few months relaxing before getting involved with more volunteer work in the area.
"My wife, Kathie, and I, we’re not moving," he said. "We’re going to stay right in Cranbury. We love it here, but I just need some time to rest and recuperate."
Though he won’t be visiting TASK on a daily basis anymore, Mr. Wise said he does have plans to begin volunteering at other organizations once he has spent a few months relaxing and traveling with his wife.
"I know that I’ll be getting involved with volunteer activities," he said. "There is so much need out there for volunteers in all kinds of arenas, both in Cranbury and Hightstown, East Windsor, also in Trenton. I’ve been asked to be on some boards and I haven’t said yes. I’m going to decide all of that after I have this time off to consider the options and the opportunities. I don’t want to get over-committed."
And even though he won’t be working anymore at TASK, Mr. Wise said he will remain an advocate for the organization’s mission, which he said is to eliminate the issue of growing poverty. He said that New Jersey is the wealthiest state in the nation, in terms of household income, so it doesn’t make sense that there is such a great level of poverty in Trenton, the state’s capital.
"I have always said that people down here are our neighbors," he said. "It only takes me 25 minutes to go from South Main Street in Cranbury to the North Ward of Trenton. It only takes me 25 minutes to go from Nassau Street in Princeton to the North Ward of Trenton. But it feels like a universe away."
He said he wants to continue to reach out to the community to address the local issue of poverty. He hopes it will motivate the state to do to address the problem.
"We don’t have the kind of society that we want when we’re growing a permanent underclass," he said. "That’s not in our self-interest. It doesn’t make economic sense from a health standpoint, a criminal justice standpoint, from an educational standpoint, from a financial standpoint. None of it makes sense."
Dennis Micai will replace Mr. Wise as director. Though the average length of time for all of the directors who preceded Mr. Wise in his position was about two years, Mr. wWise said the reason he stayed longer than anyone else is clear to him.
"I think it was that people connect," he said. "I saw the need, I looked at the need down here of these folks and I saw them as my brothers and my sisters. So, I got drawn to trying to help them in the ways that we could."

