Make the Road NJ is leading this initiative to connect vulnerable New Jerseyans, particularly immigrant frontline workers and Latinx and Black residents, with the COVID-19 vaccine. Together with its network of community partners, including health care, faith-based organizations and school administrators, Make the Road NJ is deploying a team of 30 Vaccine Ambassadors to provide information about the vaccine and appointment registration support to community members in Elizabeth, Passaic, Paterson, Garfield, Newark and Perth Amboy. Make the Road NJ and its partners are also hosting bilingual informational workshops during community meetings and on Instagram and Facebook to engage residents and answer their questions about the COVID-19 vaccine. By the end of this project, Make the Road NJ will have also leveraged its partnerships with the New Jersey Department of Health and local health departments to coordinate community-based vaccination events to provide the vaccine to up to 5,000 residents. Through Make the Road NJ’s commitment to collaboration and partnership, this program could create a model for providing equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.

Make the Road NJ and its partners are among the nonprofits and service providers that have come together as the Moving New Jersey Forward Learning Collaborative to share accomplishments and lessons learned from this work with each other, with New Jersey Health Initiatives and the state, to benefit every community. Ensuring more equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine originally connected these thought leaders as the New Jersey Vaccination Learning Network for over a year. In March 2022, the network renamed itself the Moving NJ Forward Learning Collaborative to better represent the partners’ systems-level thinking and commitment to applying the lessons from the past two years to unlock the doors to opportunity that marginalized communities face. Learn more about the collaborative’s expanded focus.

In July 2022, the Make the Road NJ project team recorded their reflections on more than six months of collaborative work across Elizabeth, Passaic, Paterson, Garfield, Newark and Perth Amboy. Scroll down to watch the video.

Browse reflections on similar efforts from across New Jersey in the Summer 2022 collection of community stories by the Moving NJ Forward Learning Collaborative.