November 6, 2005
We've started our Census

Over the last few weeks I’ve been writing about our new Census which begins this weekend at all the masses. It’s the first time since the 1980’s when we’ve attempted to get a brand new and comprehensive statistical “snapshot” of who belongs to our parish. That means not only collecting information on newcomers, but also updating information on those who have lived here all or most of their lives.
We’ll take a few minutes during mass to collect the information on each family. (If you’re not a parishioner and are visiting, I ask for your patience as we embark on this important project.)

Once you have submitted your family information, how else can you help? When you’re in your neighborhood or elsewhere around town, mention our census to other parishioners. If they weren’t here this weekend to participate, encourage them to stop by to fill in their family information or offer to bring a Census form to them -- and then, after they have filled in it, bring it right back to the parish. (The drawback to this method is that people might forget to return the forms and keep census forms in their home or car for weeks before remembering to turn them in.)

If you know of home-bound folks or people who need help in filling in forms, you could offer to assist them with filling in and returning the Census.

This week we’ll begin to enter over a thousand families in our Census database. Last week I asked for volunteers to come over to help with the data entry and in a week over 20 volunteers have been trained. A special thanks to all who are sharing their time and talent in this way.
One last thing: all personal information collected in the Census is kept confidential and not shared with any outside entity (governmental or diocesan, etc.) Our Census is for our own parish so we can better serve people and plan for our future.

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