Butler Co. Complete Count Committee kicks off campaign

The Butler County Complete Count Committee kicks off its campaign this week encouraging people to participate in the 2020 Census.

For the census, large portions of Butler, Dunklin and Wayne counties as well as all of Ripley County are considered hard to count populations. Hard to count communities include low-income families, rural communities, renters and those living in multifamily homes, communities of color, families with limited English proficiency, children under 5 years old and the homeless.

The role of the counts committee is to encourage census turnout, especially in those hard to count communities. Robbie Myers, director of the Butler County Emergency Management, is leading the Butler County committee for this census.

“On my perspective as emergency management director, when there’s a declared disaster,” Myers said. “(The census is) incredibly important for grants that we might go for in the next decade. They look not just at the city or county. They sometimes look at the neighborhood block, the census block, of what the population is. It’s not just something we need to go through the motions to do. It impacts government and business decisions for the next decade.”

Myers served on the Butler County committee for the 2000 census and the state committee for the 2010 census. He is joined on the committee by Matt Winters with Poplar Bluff city and Tim Krakowiak with Poplar Bluff R-I schools.

In past years, Myers said, the committee worked mostly on helping Census Connect find people to hire as census takers.

“It’s evolved quite a bit in the past 20 years,” he said. “We didn’t have this grassroots, connecting and reaching out. I’m more hopeful and excited after this meeting that we’ll do better this census than we did a decade ago here in Butler County.”

The theme for their campaign is based around numbers. As a way to help spread the message and the campaign, the committee recently met with community and business leaders about plans for the campaign and ways to help with it.

“We’re working with a diverse group of partners to hopefully reach every citizen,” Myers said. “Particularly in those under counted groups. We had great attendance here (for the meeting), representing a wide spectrum of service providers. We’re off to a great kick off.”

Myers said the committee recruited help from the Poplar Bluff Senior High School student council. The students will make regular social media posts with information about the census and weekly memos for organizations within the community to share with the communities they serve.

“If it’s more youthful, it might not be the best message for seniors,” Myers said. “We will also include other communication methods to reach all age groups.”

Efforts to spread involvement in the census will start Feb. 1 with a booth at the Ag Expo.

On Saturday, Expo visitors who wear a sports jersey will be entered for a chance to win a super weekend party prize package from Walmart Supercenter. They are also encouraged to participate in a photo at 12:34 p.m. in front of the main stage to promote the census.

“University of Missouri Extension’s mission is to improve lives, communities and economies,” said Stephanie Milner, University Extension County Engagement Specialist. “One way we can impact all three of those areas is by helping to increase participation in the 2020 U.S. census.

“An accurate census count can improve opportunities for grants, infrastructure improvements and business expansion that would enhance the quality of life for families in rural Missouri. We are proud to have the U.S. Census as a vendor at this weekend’s Ag Expo to share the importance of being counted.”

Feb. 10, the committee will attend an event where the County Commissioners will recognize seniors.

Feb. 20, Myers will speak at an earthquake summit about how the census impacts public safety during a natural disaster.

The Counts Committee will participate in the Chili Cook-Off on Feb. 22.

At the end of the month, the Rescue Mission will host a day of service event where Eva Bedell with PBHS student council will talk about one way to serve the community by being counted in the census.

As more outreach opportunities become available, the committee plans to consider them.

“Our first priority is to get people to participate in census day on April 1,” Myers said. “However, we’ll end up doing some work promoting the work that comes after that day.”

The census will ask for name, age, sex, birthday, race, whether the person identifies as Hispanic or Latino decent, the number of people in the home, whether the resident rents or owns for the home and for a phone number.

Census mailers will start arriving at households in mid-March — they are not delivered to post office boxes. These mailers include information on how to fill out the census either by mail, online or over the phone.

Online and over the phone is available in 13 languages.

April 1 is considered national census day. The census should be a snapshot of time on this day and people should be counted where they live on that day.

The census takers start work in April visiting college dorms and senior centers to help get those populations counted.

May through July, they’ll visit homes that haven’t responded to the census. They may visit a home up to six times if nobody responds.

In March 2021, the states will receive redistricting counts used to redraw legislative districts.

The detailed information from the census is not available for 72 years and cannot be given to other government departments such as the Department of Justice.