It’s a good day at Town Hall after Wednesday night’s Board of Education elections.
School board incumbents William Millevoi (927 votes) and Susan Pirro (941 votes) maintained their seats on the board, and long-term board member Eleanore Rienl was re-elected to her seat as well with 756 votes.
The first two candidates were backed by the administration of Mayor Dennis Elwell. The third one remained independent, but Town Hall decided not to run a candidate against her this year.
Trailing the incumbents were the two political newcomers who ran, William Doring (329 votes) and Thomas Lawlor (277 votes).
John Shinnick (728 votes) ran unopposed to finish the one-year term vacated by George Helflich. He will have to run again next year if he wants a three-year seat.
The 2005/2006 school budget of $29.3 million, an almost $2 million increase, passed in every district with a final vote of 659 to 405.
As volunteer parent for the team, the flames of Cismowski’s own desire were further fanned. “My daughter didn’t run after 1994,” she said. “In 1995, I took over for her,” said Cismowski. Cismowski had been a court reporter in New Jersey for 14 years. She will graduate in May from HCCC. While there, she held officerships in Phi Theta Kappa, was publicity officer for the Due Process Society, and was a member of the Psi Beta psychology club. In the fall, she will go on as an honors transfer student in Criminal Justice at Rutgers University in Newark. Besides stretching her limits as a runner, she works full-time as a legal secretary for international law firm, Reed Smith.
Bringing hope to inmates
The Kairos Prison Ministry angle came in after Cismowski bought a house in Secaucus in 1999 and met her fiancé, Steve Hrnciar, through that transaction. For the last four years, she and Hrnciar have collaborated on promoting the not-for-profit corporation. The MORE run was the second time she raised money for the organization.
Kairos Prison Ministry International, Inc. is the parent organization of a body of ministries addressing the spiritual needs of incarcerated men, women and children, and those who work in the prison environment. “The benefit of the ‘retreats’ we do at prisons goes beyond words,” said Hrciar. “These are men with little connection to the community. Many of their families have discarded them. They have no one to listen to their problems and offer them a way out of despair.”
Kairos, which means God’s special time in ancient Greek, is an interdenominational prison fellowship. The Kairos team goes to participating facilities in New Jersey once a year. There are follow-up visits once a month for a year afterward to keep the Christian community alive.
The money Cismowski raises goes to pay for the lodging, supplies and food for the Kairos team during their three-day retreats.
While at the prison, team members get the often-reluctant inmates to build “families” of small groups of men occupying each table during the retreat.
“It’s a beautiful thing to watch a community be built,” said Hrciar. “We assign people a place at each table for the entire weekend. Many are mistrustful, but by Jesus getting in between them, they go from being men who know each other, to men who love each other.”
Wonder women
Cismowski says her stamina and need to push the outside of the envelope were generated by women she saw run in the many marathons she runs.
She remembers two in particular – an 83-year-old woman who ran in the New York City marathon and a 55-year-old who runs five-minute miles.
“Anything is possible one step at a time,” she said. “All you need is the desire.”