At our August 10 meeting at Double Peak K-8 School, Dr. Arcela Nunez-Alvarez, Research Director of the National Latino Research Center and a co-founder of Centro Universidad Popular in Vista, spoke on the 2020 census and the extreme importance of counting everyone. The census affects how much money CA will receive from the Federal Government in the areas of education, healthcare, infrastructure, free and reduced price lunch money, and how many congressional representatives California will have. The state has itself invested $90 million to educate and do outreach towards a complete count. Dr. Alvarez has determined that there are upwards of 36,000 individuals in San Marcos alone that are in the hard to count population. These are folks that were NOT on the 2010 census and are Latinos, children, or homeless. They have a team of volunteers who will work assiduously to be sure everyone is counted in San Marcos.