Nonprofits organize car parades to boost census participation

A line of decorated cars will parade through the Roseland neighborhood Saturday morning to promote participation in this year’s census, part of a broader effort being rolled in hard-to-count communities nationwide during the coronavirus pandemic.

The caravan, organized by the Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County with help from other groups such as Sonoma County’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Elsie Allen High School, is the second of two Sonoma County census events, the first of which began in Healdsburg and Geyserville Friday afternoon and was spearheaded by Corazón Healdsburg.

Both events are modeled after car processions that have cropped up since the coronavirus pandemic began, in which friends and relatives celebrate birthdays and graduations while keeping at least 6 feet of distance.

For the Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County, which received funding earmarked by the state for census education through the County of Sonoma and United Way of the Wine Country, the event is a way to resume outreach efforts that were stalled in early March due to the coronavirus ?pandemic, said Vince Harper, the nonprofit’s director of communication.

The Roseland caravan, whose participants will include Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, members of a local car club and Santa Rosa Fire Department first responders on board a city fire truck, will depart at 10 a.m. from the Roseland Village Shopping Center before weaving into the Roseland neighborhood, Harper said.

Cars participating in the demonstration will be decorated in signs with information about the census, Harper said. The group will reconvene at the Roseland Village Shopping Center an hour later for the second portion of their outreach efforts, which includes a drive-thru with stations that have information about the census, registering to vote and other community resources.

A local food truck will supply free to-go tacos for participants, Harper said.

“The whole idea is to draw attention to the census,” Harper said of Saturday’s caravan event. “We’re motivators, encouragers and reminders of ‘Hey, did you do it?’?”

Health concerns over the spread of the coronavirus brought planned face-to-face outreach efforts to a screeching halt in early March, said Albert Lerma, a partnership specialist with the U.S. Census Bureau who works out of Sonoma County.

But when census workers saw the success of three caravan-style census outreach events held in Oakland, Santa Cruz and Richmond, which allowed organizers to maintain social distancing, the bureau decided to adopt the concept and roll it out across the country beginning on Friday through the end of the weekend, Lerma said.

“That was kind of an impetus for this event, “ Lerma said of the three Bay Area census caravan events held in May. “This allows us to get out in the community and be present.”

Corazón Healdsburg, a nonprofit that assists low-income families in Northern Sonoma County, kicked off the first of the two local car parades, which began with roughly three dozen vehicles at the Healdsburg Community Center on Friday afternoon, said Angie Sanchez, the head of programs at the nonprofit.

Organizers handed out packets with information about the census as the caravan looped around town before heading north to Geyserville, another area with hard-to-reach communities, Sanchez said. The handouts included information about how census records are stored and kept confidential, which was intended to reassure undocumented residents living in Sonoma County that their responses can’t be accessed by local authorities or immigration agents.

Accurate census counts were of particular importance for the population served by nonprofit because they often rely on government funded programs such as Medi-Cal, the Pell Grant and Head Start, which look at census data to decide where and how to allocate resources, she added.

Sanchez also pointed to estimates that suggest every person who isn’t counted in the census translates to a loss of about $1,800 in federal funds per year, she said.

“Once they hear that they’re like ‘OK’ and they’re more open to learning about the census,” Sanchez said.

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com. Twitter ?@nashellytweets