‘Get to 60!’ in Monroe County Census

This month, Monroe County residents are being asked to help the county “Get to 60!” percent by filling out the Census online, by phone or by mail. The goal this month is to help outpace Monroe County’s response rate of a decade ago (55%) by having roughly 4,000 additional households counted this year.

In order to succeed in reaching that goal, a collaborative effort has been underway to help increase awareness about the impact those thousands of households would have on federal funding for Monroe County for the next ten years.

With the support of a Census 2020 Outreach Grant from the PA Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), East Stroudsburg University (ESU) partnered with local print, radio, tourism and community leaders to develop marketing campaigns to target potential Census takers with digital, print and broadcast public service announcements.

In addition, ESU students designed social media ads to help reach more households during this crucial push for Census responses. The ads were designed by a student-run design agency at ESU called New Mind Design. The Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau also enlisted Christina Luna and Dr. Damary Bonilla to take part in a 30-second public service announcement in Spanish airing on local broadcast and cable stations including the Pocono Television Network.

The stakes are high. For each nonresponse, Monroe County stands to miss out on thousands of dollars in federal funding for vital services including emergency services and childhood education. That could amount to losing millions of dollars in funding for the coming decade in Monroe County.

Those who have not responded yet can go to My2020Census.gov to complete the questionnaire by the end of September that takes 10 minutes on average to complete. Respondents can also call (844) 330-2020 or (844) 468-2020 for Spanish.

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