Census 'Portrait of America' coming Wednesday

The 2010 Census Portrait of America Road Tour will make a stop in Salisbury on Wednesday.

The traveling census awareness campaign will be stationed at the Salisbury-Rowan Community Action Agency, 1300 W. Bank St., from 9 a.m. until noon.

Launched Jan. 4 from New York City's Times Square, the excursion includes 13 road tour vehicles that will travel more than 150,000 miles across the nation over 1,547 days.

The tour encourages citizen completion of census forms by sharing the positive impact that their participation can have on the local community, a press release said.

Salisbury Mayor Susan Kluttz said it is important for citizens to participate in the count.

"Census data is utilized to reapportion congressional seats to states and census counts directly affect how more than $400 billion in federal funding is distributed to state, local and tribal governments each year," Kluttz said in the release.

"In addition, census data guides local planning decisions, including where to provide additional social services, establish child care and senior centers, and build new roads, hospitals, schools and job training and community centers.

"By participating in the census counts, our citizens will be embracing one of our cornerstones of democracy. The first U.S. Census was set in place not only to empower the people, but to ensure that communities receive the funding, support, and services that they deserve."

The Portrait of America Road Tour will stop and exhibit at more than 800 events nationwide. The tour is designed to motivate America's growing and increasingly diverse population to complete and mail back the 10-question census forms that arrive in mailboxes March 15-17.

The Road Tour features a national vehicle, a 46-foot gooseneck trailer, and 12 regional vehicles, cargo vans with 14-foot pull trailers. The national vehicle, nicknamed "Mail It Back," features a visual, interactive representation of the 10-question census form.

The regional vehicles offer a similar experience, including GPS technology that allows visitors to track the tour online as it happens and through daily social media postings.

Each of the tour vehicles is custom-designed and provides state-of-the-art technology to provide information about the approaching census count. Each vehicle has a unique name and theme connected with the region in which it will travel during the tour.

Altogether, more than 3 million people across the nation will have the opportunity to share their stories and contribute photos through the tour, explaining why the census will make a difference in their communities.

The tour offers a consistently changing "portrait of America" as it is captured during Road Tour events.

The 2010 Census is being conducted to count of everyone living in the United States. By law, everyone in the U.S., both citizens and noncitizens, must be counted every 10 years.

For more information about local awareness efforts underway in support of the census, contact Kathryn Clifton, Salisbury GIS coordinator and 2010 Census Rowan-Salisbury Complete Count Committee co-chairwoman, at 704-638-5246.

For more 2010 Census information visit 2010census.gov or follow the 2010 Census on Twitter.com/ 2010Portrait, and on Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube.com/uscensusbureau.