St. Mary's County Complete Count Committee ramps final outreach ahead of Sept. 30 deadline

St. Mary's County's Census Complete Count Committee met Sept. 17 to review final outreach and advertising as the 2020 Census approached its scheduled close on Sept. 30, county staff said.

The committee heard that the county's self-response rate was hovering just below the committee's 70% goal — 69.7% as of Sept. 14 and 69.8% as of the day before the meeting — and organizers described a weeklong push of radio advertising, mobile questionnaire-assistance sites and neighborhood outreach to raise the final tally.

The committee's media lead, Alyssa Casas, said the county used radio, cable television, internet, newspaper and transit-bus ads paid for through the 2020 Maryland Census Grant Program and that remaining grant-funded outreach would end Sept. 30. "To coincide with the completion of the 2020 Census, all outreach, advertising, and campaign strategies will end on September 30th," Casas said. She also told the committee that a planned movie-theater advertising campaign was canceled because theaters closed during the COVID-19 pandemic and the money was reallocated to radio advertising.

Sandy Green, of the Department of Land Use and Growth Management, said the county is completing a grant report due Oct. 31 and used leftover funds to mail census maps and flyers to schools, home-school families and businesses that were hard to reach online. Green said outreach included mailings to more than 50 churches with no available email addresses, deliveries to senior-living centers and food-distribution sites, and distribution of posters to businesses; committee staff noted that 13 businesses received posters in the most recent distribution.

Lee Osberry, partner specialist with the U.S. Census Bureau, told the meeting, "the census count is going extremely well for St. Mary's County," and urged people not to delay completing the form. Osberry highlighted mobile questionnaire-assistance centers and said the Census Bureau was emailing households in areas with lower response to prompt participation, noting the official Census Bureau subscription address is 2020census@subscriptions.census.gov. He also reminded attendees that census hiring and follow-up surveys continue after the self-response window and described safety protocols for enumerators in the field.

State outreach coordinator John Watson congratulated the county for its progress and said it was the "1st county in the state to achieve your 2010 self response rate, during the pandemic, especially, it's no small feat." Watson said the state is assisting with outreach tools and recognized local volunteers and partners for their work.

Subcommittee reports summarized local tactics: the business team distributed flyers at farmers markets and chamber events and made in-person deliveries to post offices; community services added census messaging to program receipts and public-facing locations such as waterfront parks and recreation centers; education partners provided maps and flyers to public and private schools and worked with the College of Southern Maryland and St. Mary's College of Maryland to reach students; and human services agencies shared flyers with clients and coordinated with homeless services.

Committee members listed several specific outreach steps to be completed in the remaining days: a final week of radio ads, continued daily social media posts from government accounts, mobile assistance events, distribution of printed maps and flyers to low-response neighborhoods including Lexington Park and Southern Ridge, and a targeted homeless-count operation scheduled Sept. 22–24, with an overnight street count on the night of Sept. 24.

Meeting participants reiterated safety practices for door-to-door follow-up, and Osberry said enumerators are local community members who will follow mask, distancing and hygiene protocols. The committee also highlighted that outreach materials and incentives were sent to volunteers such as firefighters, civic organizations and the Ridge Lions Club for placement of electronic signs.

No formal votes or ordinance actions were recorded in the meeting. The committee adjourned after brief closing remarks and a final request to continue outreach during the last two weeks of the count.

Ending: Committee staff said they will finalize the grant report by Oct. 31, continue to coordinate last-day outreach and circulate promotional materials such as a "sidewalk incentive" flyer to encourage visible neighborhood reminders that the census closing date is near.