A Lynn city councilor-at-large since 2004, Cuffe-O’Donnell has served the community in many ways. A former teacher and president of the Salem teachers union, she has been a delegate to the Democratic State Convention.

Prior to being elected to the City Council, she served on the Lynn School Committee and received a 2003 lifetime achievement award from the Massachusetts Association of School Committee.

A Lynn Rotary Club member, Cuffe-O’Donnell serves on the advisory board of the literacy program First Book and is chairwoman of the city’s renewable energy committee. In that position, she has been a leader in the drive to build a wind turbine at the site of the Lynn Water and Sewer plant on the Lynnway.