Questionnaire assistance centers will be set up in the county to answer inquiries about filling out census forms.
The centers will be open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Mondays through Wednesdays at the Historic Courthouse at 100 North St. in downtown Canton and the South Annex government complex at 7545 Main St. north of downtown Woodstock.
Buzz Ahrens, chairman of the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners, said momentum behind the complete count movement is picking up.
"I plan to talk about it for the next two months," he said about the continuing effort to raise awareness about the census. "I have reached out to a lot of people asking them for ideas."
An accurate count is important, officials said, because the numbers are used to make decisions ranging from Congressional representation to federal funding allotments.
Ahrens said he hopes the faith-based community will promote the census at their churches and that homeowners' associations will help get the word out to their members.
The Cherokee County School District recently sent letters home to parents about the push to achieve a complete population count.
The letter, written by county Superintendent of Schools Dr. Frank Petruzielo, stresses the importance of an accurate census.
"These numbers can determine how funding and other resources for various programs are allocated, and in a fast-growing community like Cherokee County, we need to ensure that an accurate count of our population is determined," he wrote.
Edward Davis, partnership coordinator for the Atlanta region for the U.S. Census, said each census office will hire between 1,000 and 1,200 workers. Cherokee County is covered by the office in Gainesville.
Davis said the Census Bureau is at the end of its recruitment phase and should begin hiring this month.
Most of the workers hired will be going out in the community to do house-to-house canvassing to follow up with people who don't complete the forms sent to them by mail. The bureau asks people to return the forms by the beginning of April.
These workers, called enumerators, will be out in the community beginning in April through the early part of June.
The enumerators seen in the community by residents will be people from the area.
"We want people in the county they are from so they can be of extra value," he said. "It would do no good to have someone from Dalton or Decatur to work on that team."
Census workers will have proper identification and will not ask for residents' Social Security numbers or financial account information.
For information on a job with the census, call 1 (866) 861-2010 or see the Web site at www.2010censusjobs.gov.
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