Stand Up and Be Counted

By now, you should have received your 2010 Census form. I encourage each and every one of you to take a few minutes and fill it out, ensuring you count each and every person in your home. Federal and state funds (of about 300 billion dollars) are divided up depending on the number of people that live in each area. This data is used for the next 10 years of financial disbursements. In order to ensure that the Rochester area gets the money it needs, we need to make sure that every child and adult, male and female, legal or not, and every race gets counted. The money received goes to help with educational and health resources as well as transportation and public safety. The form only takes a few minutes to fill out and consists of 10 questions per person (mostly age, gender, name, etc). It is not only our civic duty, but by law we need to be counted every 10 years (though I do not know what exactly will happen if you do not fill out the form). It is also important for future generations who may want to research their family history. Census data is an invaluable resource for genealogists. For more information, you can visit the census page on the city's website, NY state's census website or the federal census website.