Fort Wayne Creates Census Committee

The City of Fort Wayne unveiled a local committee Wednesday that will help ensure all residents are counted in the 2010 Census.

Nineteen volunteers will work with groups that traditionally are under counted, including minorities, children, and immigrants and refugees, to communicate the message that the Census is important and safe, according to a city statement.

Census figures determine congressional representation, and federal grant amounts and program funding. Members of the city's 2010 Census Complete Count Committee will not go door to door to find people who did not fill out a Census form. They will employ other outreach strategies to increase participation.

Palermo Galindo, the city's Hispanic-immigrant liaison, and Ngozi Rogers, creative services director at Indiana's NewsCenter, are co-chairing the committee.The Census Monitoring Board estimated about 47,000 people in Indiana were not counted during the 2000 Census.