On August 4th, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors recognized the San Mateo Adult School Census Ambassadors for the fantastic work they have accomplished. (Read more about the award winning Census Ambassador Program here.
Read the speech given by Census Ambassador Shereen Lata:
Hello everyone just want to say thank you to San Mateo county for giving SMAS a very great opportunity to participate in Census 2020.
My name is Shereen Lata I’m so glad I join this program
We learned so much from it. What is Census ?
How important it is?
Why must everyone be counted ?
How does it impact everyone leaving here?
So proud that We could help our community.
IN FUTURE IF THE COUNTY HAS OTHER PROGRAMS LIKE THIS WHERE THEY NEED VOLUNTEERS, Please give us SMAS first chance to participate.
We would like to thank our advisor Stephanie Kriebel for driving us safely to all our presentations to help us answer some difficult questions. Aparna Ramakrishan to bring this program to Stephanie Kriebel.
And very big thanks to our proud team.
Read the information from Census Ambassador Shelley Cheng:
My name is Shelley Cheng and I come from China. I am an ESL student at San Mateo Adult School and also a member of the Census Ambassador team. In summer 2019, the County of San Mateo and San Mateo Adult School (SMAS) partnered to create a Census Ambassador training program for volunteers who wanted to educate fellow residents about Census 2020 and serve as a resource in their communities. Since I became part of the Census Ambassador Training Program, I learned what the census is, why it is important for everyone, and how people can participate. One of the most important things I learned is how to communicate with different kinds of people who don’t know about the Census or who are afraid to participate. To reach the students at our school, our team set up census information tables during the break times and also made presentations in each class. Through these activities, we have convinced our fellow students to pledge to participate and be counted. Even now, during the quarantine caused by covid-19, the Census Ambassador team is still expanding information by remote methods. Some of our students were afraid of providing their contact information for pledging, so I asked them to think about how and why we can get the opportunity to study English for free at our school, to think about where the money comes from. We explained the money is from the state, county, and city government just based on how many people live here. By helping people to understand information about the Census made it easier to convince students to pledge because we always love and appreciate what our school has done for us. We have also visited classes outside of our school for sharing census information with as many people as possible. Since last November until this March, we have presented to more than 800 people and talked with them about the census. I am so proud to be part of the Census Ambassador team because I learned how this system works and especially what I can do to contribute and help my friends, family, and community become comfortable with participating in the census.
A big thank you to Shereen Lata, Shelley Cheng, Edy Vasquez, Marina Zambruskova, Shirley Pinheiro, and Adviser Stephanie Kriebel for the phenomenal work they have accomplished for our community!
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