The 2010 Census Portrait of America Road Tour – a cross-country interactive experience aimed to increase participation in the national count – will visit the Wat Washington Buddhist Temple in Auburn on Sunday.
The tour will be Auburn from noon to 2 p.m., joining the celebration of the traditional Thai New Year Songkran Festival.
Mayor Pete Lewis and Ajahn Boonliang, Abbot of the Wat Washington Buddhavanaram, will appear. Thai cultural and classical dancers will perform.
Traveling more than 150,000 miles around the country, 13 road tour vehicles will provide the public with an educational, engaging and interactive experience that brings the 2010 Census to life. The Seattle Region’s vehicle – a cargo van with a 14-foot trailer – started Jan. 4 from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and will be making a 100-day journey to the Space Needle in Seattle, with stops in Northern California, Oregon, Idaho and Washington.
A mobile Question Assistance Center will be on site in Auburn, staffed by Census Bureau employees, for those needing help filling out their 2010 census forms. The questionnaire is available in six different languages – English, Spanish, simplified Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Russian – and instructions for completing it are offered in 59 additional languages.
The stop in Auburn kicks off the final three on the tour’s regional journey, bringing the interactive display to:
• Sunday: Wat Washington Buddhist Temple, 4401 S. 360th St., Auburn, 253-927-5408
• Monday: Safeco Field for the Mariners’ home opener, 1:30-4 p.m.
• Tuesday: Seattle Center for the Rock the Count! Road Tour finale
The tour is part of the largest civic outreach and awareness campaign in U.S. history, stopping 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 form that arrived in mailboxes in March. Mailing back the form by April 16 will avoid an in-person visit from a census worker, saving the federal government – and taxpayers – a significant amount of money.
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ABOUT THE 2010 CENSUS:
The 2010 Census is a count of everyone living in the United States and is mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Census data are used to award congressional seats to states, to distribute more than $400 billion in federal funds to local, state and tribal governments each year and to make decisions about what community services to provide. The 2010 Census form will be one of the shortest in U.S. history and consists of just 10 questions, taking about 10 minutes to complete. Strict confidentiality laws protect the respondents and the information they provide.
For more information about the 2010 Census and the Road Tour, please visit http://2010.census.gov/2010census/ and follow it on Twitter (@10Abacus), Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube.
