WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. — Census numbers are low in West Memphis, so city leaders are stepping up their game to get citizens to fill out the forms.
They’re using a new drive-through service at a local center to make it easy for people to drive up and have city staffers help fill out their forms. They’re also giving away free PPE as an extra incentive.
“We’re here because we’re trying to get people signed up for the census,” said Tawana Bailey, West Memphis community outreach director. “Our numbers are a little bit low and not as high as we want them, and we’re trying to get our citizens to get that paperwork completed.”
The cars lined up at the Roberta Jackson center in West Memphis could affect this city for the next 10 years, by making sure every person is counted in the census.
“They need to know how many people are here in America that might need help, and if you don’t know anything about them, you can’t get any help,” Pam Parker said.
But getting people to complete that paperwork has been a challenge.
“Right now we’re around 51 percent and that’s too low right now,” Mayor Marco McClendon said.
As an incentive, everyone who completes the census here is getting free face masks, hand sanitizer and gloves.
“It’s very important we go in public places with these masks. We need to plenty of them and keep them on hand,” Parker said.
City leaders say it’s critical that West Memphis has a 100% participation rate for the census.
“It’s important because it puts more dollars back into our community, our schools, the improvement of our roads, some of our buildings and law enforcement,” Bailey said. “We really want to get those billions of dollars back here to keep our infrastructure up.”
