Census committee reviews sample questionnaire

Wrangell's census committee, made up of representatives of several organizations across the community, met last Thursday, Jan. 23, to continue their discussion of how to encourage higher responses to the upcoming 2020 census. During the meeting, Economic Development Director Carol Rushmore provided sample copies of the questionnaire people will have the opportunity to answer for the census. There are nine questions, asking for a person's name, age, sex, race, phone number, whether they own or rent their residence, and how many people live with them. Along with these questions are a series of questions for people who live in the same residence, asking for similar information. Rushmore said in a previous committee meeting that the census asks for less personal information than an application for the PFD does.

In an effort to provide more information on the census, and to encourage Wrangell residents to respond to it, Rushmore informed the committee that they signed up for a booth at the upcoming Health Fair on April 4. Sarah Merritt, of the Legislative Information Office, has also been passing out information on the census to people while assisting them with PFD applications. The Friends of the Library has also applied for some funds to provide food and drinks to people during Census Day, on April 1.

In other news, Lt. Jon Tollerud of the Salvation Army reported that he recently received some funding to host census sign-ups on April 1. He said that he has been speaking to a few people that come to the Salvation Army's food pantry about sharing their stories about the federal programs that assist them, which rely on census data for resource allocation, to demonstrate the importance of the census.

During the meeting, the committee also got a look at some new stickers designed by Stephanie Cook, with the chamber of commerce. These "I Count for Wrangell" stickers will go along with Wrangell census materials.

Moving forward, in an email after the meeting, Rushmore outlined some of the next steps the census committee planned to take. These include flushing out a social media calendar, getting in touch with the school district to see how they could get involved, and seeing about getting census workers set up to assist people in the library and Salvation Army on Census Day.