Tag Archives: profile

News

Amy Flynn Brings Innovation, Decades of Nonprofit Leadership as New TASK CEO

By Rebecca Heath

Amy Flynn, Chief Executive Officer of the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, first learned the importance of giving back while growing up food insecure on a dairy farm in the midwest.

“There were times when we didn’t have heat in our home except for a wood burning stove,” Flynn said in an interview with The Streetlight. “I can remember my mom just piling blankets on top of us at night, waking up in the morning and being able to see my breath.”

Despite their own struggles, Flynn said her family always found a way to support their neighbors, a common practice in her rural community that sparked her decades-long passion for service.

“We never had so little that we didn’t have something that we gave away,” she said. “Whether it was going to a neighboring family’s home to help because someone was sick. … . I can
remember our neighbors coming to help us in similar ways.”

Flynn said she has always been particularly inspired by her grandparents, who often brought her along to help neighbors in need as a child.

“Both of them were just so dedicated to giving back. They truly set the example for all of us in the family,” she said. “Even in service now so many of our friends and neighbors are just one paycheck away from experiencing, it could be homelessness, it could be going without a meal.”

Motivated by her upbringing, Flynn has dedicated her life and career to serving her community. Following nearly two decades of non-profit leadership, including a recent two-year tenure as the CEO of Meals on Wheels of Mercer County, Flynn officially took the helm of TASK in January. The long-standing organization provides meals daily and offers a variety of programs and services to people facing homelessness and food insecurity in Mercer County.

Flynn’s appointment at TASK followed the retirement of Joyce Campbell, who led the organization for eight years before announcing her plans to step down as CEO in May 2024.

As Flynn maps out her goals for her tenure, she said she aims to
“figure out how TASK can continue to be innovative in its approach to tackling the issue of food insecurity, and to engage and involve our community partners.”

“Joyce Campbell was a visionary leader of this organization, and so
I felt very fortunate,” Flynn said. “I’m standing on her shoulders right
now. I mean, she and the board and this amazing staff here have already built so much, and so it’s important to me to keep that momentum moving forward.”

As one of her initiatives, Flynn said she hopes to expand training programs at TASK, such as Emilio’s Culinary Academy. The program,
which is the only one of its kind in Mercer County, teaches culinary
skills to aspiring chefs for free, and helps them land jobs in professional kitchens.

“I think there’s a lot of opportunity to grow around that space,” Flynn said. “There’s lots of culinary training programs, but I think what
makes Emilio’s Culinary Academy stand out is it’s a really small group, a specialized approach. … We have students in the program that have a lot of barriers, and so what’s wonderful is that they have the benefit of our case management team around
them.”

Flynn said the success of the culinary academy has sparked “the potential for us to feed into other training and skills programs,” including workforce readiness and development initiatives.

“We know that there’s always going to be individuals that need the soup kitchen…but if we have the opportunity to help people lift out
of needing this type of support, to find meaningful employment that
has generational impact…that piece really excites me,” Flynn said.

In addition to serving patrons from its flagship Escher Street location, Flynn said TASK has expanded to various satellite locations across Mercer County, and recently celebrated the one year anniversary of launching its food truck.

“We’re working hard to be innovative and get out into communities, to individuals that can’t come to the soup kitchen,” Flynn said. “I think it takes all of us working together to kind of cover our community and surround the community, with care.”

Since starting her role, Flynn said she has met with various board
members, staff members, volunteers and community partners to better understand the barriers the organization is facing and how to effectively address them.

“There’s always going to be challenges, and there’s nobody better to learn from than the people that are on the front lines every day,” Flynn said.

With recent federal policies jeopardizing programs such as SNAP benefits and Medicaid, Flynn said TASK has been working to
ensure the organization can continue serving their patrons. She anticipates the demand for TASK’s services to increase while donations may decrease.

“That presents a layered challenge because we’re going to have to provide more food, with the same amount of resources that we have, or perhaps we’ll have more limited resources because more families are experiencing financial challenges,” she said.

As Flynn and her team navigate uncertainty, working to ensure
the organization has “long-term sustainability” remains their
“number one priority.”

“Obviously what would be wonderful is if we could put ourselves out of business, that nobody was hungry. But we know that that’s not going to be the case for a while,” she said. 

Flynn said TASK will continue its efforts to “meet people where
they are,” and emphasized that food insecurity can affect anyone.

“I think it’s important for us to always understand that our neighbors, we have no idea what they might be going through, Flynn said. “It’s always important to me to pay it forward and give back.”

News

Mary Gay Abbott-Young Looks Back on Decades of Service as Rescue Mission CEO

By Rebecca Heath

Mary Gay Abbott-Young may have recently retired from a 50-year stint as CEO of the Rescue Mission of Trenton, but the veteran advocate who led the organization through a period of evolution and growth, says she “never worked a day in her life.”

“I’ve had a wonderful career and met some of the most amazing people from our community, from New Jersey, and really, in some cases, from well beyond the New Jersey borders,” Abbott-Young said in an interview with The Streetlight. 

Abbott-Young, who concluded her career at the Mission in June, has always been driven by a passion for service. Following a brief stint as a volunteer with the AmeriCorps VISTA, she landed her first role at the organization in 1978 as a program coordinator, shortly after graduating from Temple University with a degree in social work. “I loved [the Mission] from the day I got there,” Abbott-Young said.

The social justice trailblazer subsequently moved up the ranks, becoming CEO and the first woman to lead the long-standing nonprofit in 1986. 

As a woman asserting her place in the organization, Abbott-Young recalls facing stigma from her male counterparts. While interviewing for her role, she said she was asked if she was married and if she was going to have children, to which she replied, “I don’t think you’re allowed to ask that question anymore.”

“You can imagine this young woman, fighting, coming out of the women’s movement and ready to take on everything,” she said. “And [I] get this conservative guy, who has the nerve to ask a question like that.”

Despite the initial challenges, Abbott-Young said she and her co-workers were united by a common desire: “To make the Rescue Mission the best place it could be for those people we served.”

Throughout her tenure as CEO, Abbott-Young says she was amazed by the resilience of the Mission’s patrons and the collective efforts among nonprofits, government agencies and private sector organizations to address the growing issue of homelessness in Mercer County. Abbott-Young cited initiatives such as the Continuum of Care Program, which has helped alleviate the homelessness crisis through providing funding for efforts by nonprofit providers. 

“The stars have all lined up throughout my career with very, very few exceptions,” she said

However, at the root of the homelessness crisis is economic poverty, which “opens up an entire world of different issues,” Abbot-Young said. In order to create a systemic impact in alleviating poverty, issues like racial, economic and educational inequality must first be addressed, she explained.

“Unless we are willing to move into those areas, all of the wonderful progress that we’re making will continue to be individual based rather than system based,” she said. 

For the Mission, Abbott-Young said the biggest hurdle in effectively serving the community has always been finances. While her predecessor refused government funding, even as the organization was “close to closing,” gaining support from local, state and federal agencies marked a pivotal step in the organization’s history. 

“We had a knock-down fight about it, but I believed we had to accept it to keep serving people,” she said. “Eventually, he agreed to support my direction. That was a pivotal change for the Rescue Mission.”

“The culture changed when we took government funding,” she added. “But the support from the state, business community, and government was remarkable. Instead of pushing people away, they were asking, ‘How can we help you help these people?’”

Since its inception in 1915, the Mission has grown to encompass a shelter, behavioral health center, a thrift store, food pantry and vocational development services. In the last year, the organization has helped more than 4,000 individuals and served nearly 200,000 meals, according to the Mission’s website. 

“The organization has never missed a day of service,” Abbott-Young said. “We never failed to open that shelter door. We never failed to be there for them and to keep our residents who were in treatment for behavioral health issues safe in a residential building. That was not the work of a lone CEO. It is the work of the entire organization’s dedication.”

Despite her decades of service and transformative leadership, Abbott-Young considers her greatest accomplishment to be raising her two children. Her daughter, who is now an attorney, advocates for homeless families at HomeFront, and her son, Barrett Young, has succeeded her as CEO of the Mission.

Although Abbott-Young said stepping down from her post was “more bitter than sweet,” she realized during the Covid-19 pandemic that her “lack of ability to use technology was a deficit to both me and the organization.” 

 “If you could figure out how to make me 50 years younger and I can start my career again at the rescue mission, I’d be happy to do so,” she said. 

As she looks ahead to the future of the organization, Abbott-Young said she hopes whenever someone steps on to the Rescue Mission’s property, the first question will always be, “Did you eat today?” 

“And second, I pray that everyone who interacts with our clients is able to look in that person’s eyes and see not only their pain, but also see their potential.”