The below is a letter received from Lauren Zyriek and Eric Kipnis of the State of New Jersey:
Hello Census Advocates, Partners and Community Leaders,
New Jersey’s population and apportionment counts announced by the Census Bureau on Monday exceeded all expectations – our population grew by nearly 500,000 people over the last decade. The count tells us a number of things. Foremost among them is that New Jersey has attracted a significant number of new residents over the last decade. But beyond that we now know that our massive and unique collaborative statewide effort to count our residents, under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, was a definitive success.
On behalf of Secretary of State Tahesha Way we want to thank all of you – our Complete Count Commission members and staff, volunteers, advocates, our grantee partners, elected officials, and our great statewide partners at the New York Regional Office of the Census Bureau, the Census 2020 NJ Coalition of non-profits and philanthropic groups – for all of your dedication and hard work. And most importantly, we want to thank the people of New Jersey for understanding the importance of filling out the Census!
Our successful efforts will result in real benefits for us all over the next ten years and beyond. We ensured that our current level of representation in Washington will remain intact, and because of our increased accuracy we will receive proper federal funding that will help our public schools, invest in world-class transit and infrastructure, improve our hospitals and healthcare, and much more. All of this will help us grow as we emerge from the pandemic.
You should all be very proud of the role you played. Be sure to celebrate that success and what it will mean for your communities by posting about it on social media. Use the hashtag #NJCensus2020 so we can like and share your posts.
We look forward to staying in touch with you and will continue to reach out as we move forward in our efforts to promote civic engagement across the state and its diverse communities.
Once again, thank you for your commitment and your service to our state and to your communities. You made a difference!
Best,
Lauren and Eric