Top stories in Cranbury-Windsor Hights

As we come to the end of 2024, we look back at stories that stood out this year in Cranbury-Windsor Hights.

New inclusive playground

Cranbury officials celebrated a new inclusive playground in Village Park that allows for children with disabilities to enjoy more playground equipment features.

Mayor Eman El-Badawi, Township Committee members, and Parks and Recreation Commission members were joined in the celebration by residents, State Sen. Linda Greenstein, Assemblywoman Tennille McCoy and Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo for a ribbon cutting ceremony in front of the new playground on Sept. 5.

“Every moment we are able to serve the needs of our community is important,” El-Badawi said. “But this one in particular is very sweet because it started with a resident in town who was lifting the idea that their child could not really play appropriately, comfortably, and happily on a playground.

“You feel like it was meant to be. [When] everything kind of stood in [the playground’s] way and time stood in its way, the funding came through and people remained interested.”

The new inclusive playground replaces the previous playground that existed in Village Park.

For the new playground to be installed the township needed $400,000 to cover the project’s total cost. Greenstein secured Cranbury $300,000 in state funds for the project through the state budget for the 2024 fiscal year and $100,000 in township funds accounted for rest.

hearts+homes

Out of Kristen Bowen’s grief after losing both her parents, an idea has sprouted into a nonprofit ministry dedicated to furnishing homes for families emerging from a crisis.

Bowen is the founder and president of hearts+homes, a nonprofit based in Cranbury, which serves families throughout Mercer and Middlesex County who are underemployed, single moms, refugees, and emerging from other crises such as domestic violence.

The organization takes gently used furnishings and home goods that are donated to them and upcycle the furniture donated to be reused in the furnishing of a new home or living space for a family in need and emerging out of a crisis.

On June 27, Danny Gokey, a three-time Grammy nominee and American Idol alum, paid hearts+homes a visit to announce that they would be receiving their own box truck through his nonprofit “Better Than I Found It.”

“What I think makes this ministry unique is not just what they do as far as just furnishing homes and putting a special touch on it, it is giving people dignity and honor,” he said.

“I thought it was so special where it started too. How it started from Kristen walking through a very dark season and how she did not allow that to take her down, but she was able to look and see how she can take it and turn it into something positive.”

Hearts+homes not only received a box truck, but tool equipment and supplies gifted by Gokey’s fans to aid in their efforts. Hearts+homes had reached out to “Better Than I Found It” in 2023 and their giveback program and reached out again in 2024.

Bowen described the donated box truck from Gokey and Better Than I Found as a “game changer” for hearts+homes.

“Princeton Alliance Church has been so generous and has allowed us to borrow their box truck since the very beginning,” she said, adding that it is an incredible blessing. “Not having your own [box truck], there is a lot of coordination that goes into everything.

“For us to physically have access to a truck at any time opens the door to us being able to serve families more quickly, we can serve more families in general, and we also then have the ability to load the truck anytime we want to.”

Stitching Society

Winter is here and it’s cold outside.

Ahead of this winter season, members of the Stitching Society, a nonprofit organization/club at Hightstown High School as well as outside of school, is in their first year of giving back. They spent the past year and a half educating members of the inner workings of using yarn and transforming them into winter gear – blankets, hats, mittens, scarves, head wraps – you name it.

The society has already donated 150 to 175 or so items that were made to RISE, a local nonprofit that helps support individuals and families in need. Purva Patel, founder of the nonprofit society and Rhyan Greene, vice president, recently made another donation of blankets they were able to purchase through donations and stitched hats, mittens, scarves and headscarves.

“Our goal is to not only share the tangible contributions we’re making but also to inspire others in the community to join the cause or start similar initiatives,” Patel said.

Elections

Voters returned East Windsor Township and Hightstown Borough incumbent school board members Jenna Drake, Christina “Tina” Lands and Kavitha Madhuri Velagapudi to the East Windsor Regional School District Board of Education in the Nov. 5 general election.

Voters also chose Robert Laverty to fill out an unexpired one-year term on the school board, defeating incumbent school board member Paula Calia. She had been appointed in January to replace Bernard Fougnies, who had resigned.

Of the nine seats on the East Windsor Regional School District Board of Education, seven are set aside for East Windsor Township residents and two are earmarked for Hightstown Borough residents. The term is for three years.

Landis, Laverty and Velagapudi represent East Windsor Township and Drake represents Hightstown Borough.

Meanwhile, Hightstown voters returned to incumbent Hightstown Borough Council members to serve three-year terms on the governing body in the Nov. 5 general election.

Hightstown Borough Councilman Jeet Gulati was elected to his first full term. He had been appointed to fill out an unexpired term.

Hightstown Borough Councilman Frederick Montferrat was re-elected to his second full term. He had been appointed to fill out an unexpired term and then was elected to a full term.

There was no election for the East Windsor Township Council.