Hi! I’m Simon Galperin. I’m a journalist and community organizer who lives in Bloomfield and cares deeply about this place. I’d like to talk to you about what you care about. What information do you want to know? What can you share with others? I’d love to hear so I can be a connector.
You can reach me at [email protected]. I’m available by phone and text at at 973-370-3998. Or you can send us a message through this form.
That’s what we’re here to do at the Bloomfield Information Project. We want to understand your vision for Bloomfield and provide the information, context, and connection you need to make that dream a reality. We’re a nonprofit community media project that’s part reporter and part community advocate. And we’re entirely dedicated to bringing people together to make our community a better place.
In June of 2019, we held a community meeting at the Bloomfield Public Library to discuss the news needs of people living and working in Bloomfield. We heard nearly two dozen ideas for improving how we get informed about what’s happening in our community.
The news and information in town is “pieces here, pieces there,” with no single reliable source of information, according to one participant. Attendees hoped for information that told them “not just what happened but what it means to people being affected by it.” They wanted news thats proactive, encourages them to get involved, and helps them understand why their participation matters.
Note: While the meeting was open to the public, we’re not using the attendees’ names alongside their statements because we did not ask permission to do so.
Meeting attendees also told us about where they get their news and information. They pointed to the township’s twice-a-year print newsletter, the Bloomfield Buzz, and it’s monthly digital companion – the E-Buzz. News sites like Bloomfield Patch came up. So did Bloomfield Pulse, the town’s leading social media news provider run by Maria Probst. (You can find the Bloomfield Pulse on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.)
But a need for a dedicated news and information service kept coming up – a service that fits into people’s lives and provides them the information they need to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled.
So we’ve launched the Bloomfield Information Project to work with the community to make that happen. For the next few months, we’ll be conducting interviews, hosting listening sessions, and canvassing to learn about your vision for Bloomfield and understand what sort of news, information, and connection you need to live your best life. We’ll be sharing what we learn on this site as well as by email newsletter. We’ll also occasionally publish news and information ourselves.
We’d love for you to join us in this effort. As a community, we have all of the skills and knowledge we need to work through our challenges. To unlock those solutions, we need to get to know each other. So we invite you to get involved with the Bloomfield Information Project. Here are a few ways you can do that:
- Nominate a local for us to feature in our Community Spotlight here.
- Have a question about life in Bloomfield? Ask us here. We’ll do our best to work with you to find an answer.
- Share your vision and goals for Bloomfield here.
- Have something else you’d like to contribute? Email us at [email protected].
You can find out more about the Bloomfield Information Project on our About page here, including how we’re funded and our ethics standards.