We don't envy members of the board of trustees, who will have to search long and hard to replace Micai.
Help Wanted: A visionary to fill the (quite sturdy) shoes of Dennis Micai, executive director of the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, who announced last week he'll retire in August after steering the social-service nonprofit through a demanding nine years.
We don't envy members of the board of trustees, who will have to search long and hard to replace Micai. The longest-serving director in TASK's 33 years of operation, he never lost sight of the agency's primary goal: providing a safety net for Mercer County's hungry while preserving each individual's sense of worth.
"At TASK, we endeavor to treat everyone with dignity," Micai wrote in a 2013 opinion piece in The Times of Trenton. "We have learned that when folks are treated with dignity, they respond accordingly."
You're going to be hearing and reading a lot of tributes to this man in the months ahead. It's hard to overstate Micai's impact on the city and its surroundings.
Under his able hands, TASK expanded its mandate, reaching out to feed the needy in Mercer County's outer ring communities.
MORE: 'The American Dream has faded:' See the faces of today's poor
Micai forged partnerships with other charities and religious bodies, launching satellite operations in Trenton, Princeton, Hamilton and Hightstown - 10 locations in all.
He oversees a paid staff of 28 and a volunteer crew of more than 3,500. Together, they serve more than 4,800 free meals every week, through the dead of winter and the steamy days of summer.
Micai was on board when TASK's mission broadened from feeding the homeless, addicted and mentally ill to serving senior citizens on a fixed income and young families with few dollars in their bank accounts. The evolution echoed the sad realities of New Jersey's economy.
In his Times op-ed, Micai described what he termed the "new poor - middle-class Americans shoved into the ranks of the poor by the recession, as poverty stopped being only an 'urban issue' and continued to expand into the suburbs."
TASK helps nurture the mind as well as the body. Through the agency's GED program, more than 100 people have earned their degrees and have begun the process of turning their lives around - one of the accomplishments of which Micai says he is most proud.
Board of trustees President Jim Parker called his director "an exemplary, passionate leader who is highly respected by all for his deep concern for those who are truly needy, for his broad knowledge of government and the nonprofit sector and understanding and concern for the human consequences of poverty."
Big shoes, indeed.