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Hazelwood Provides 2010 Census Backpacks to Students
Kindergarten students at Armstrong, Garrett, McNair and Russell elementary schools in the Hazelwood School District received something no one else at their schools did – 2010 United States Census backpacks.
Two City of Hazelwood employees, City Clerk Colleen Klos and Communications Director Tim Davidson along with City of Hazelwood volunteer Tony Podorski, dropped off the backpacks to elementary schools within city limits, starting at McNair. They met Brenda Rone before distributing the backpacks to the students.
“We’re from the City of Hazelwood, where your school is located and where most of you live,” Klos told the students in the three kindergarten classes. She encouraged the students to take the blue, silver, yellow and pink backpacks home and to pass along the information inside them to their parents, including a letter from HSD Interim Superintendent Mary Piper.
Sometime this week, every household in the nation will receive the 2010 census form with 10 easy questions to answer. Completing the form should take 15 minutes or less. Students were told to make sure their parents send back their completed forms.
“Everybody is a person and everybody wants to be counted,” Klos said.
Accurate census counts affect many things in a community, including: Title I grants, Head Start programs, Public transportation, Road construction,
Teachers called their students to come up in small groups and Klos handed out the packs. Most girls picked pink ones while blue and silver were popular hues with the boys. Besides the information for parents, each pack contained a ruler, small flying disc, a pen, pencils, balloons and more for the children. “I got a note pad!” one girl said as she showed it off to her friends.
“A Frisbee®!” a boy said, which prompted every one of his classmates to carefully examine their own backpacks to see what they had in them. Teachers told the students put the new packs in their regular backpacks so no one lost the new ones before going home.
“The last time we did this, in 2000, you all were not even here yet,” Rone told the students in Amy Hagedorn’s room, who were probably born in 2004 or 2005.
Visit www.2010Census.gov for more census information.
