SOUTH FALLSBURG — As the deadline looms for in-person data collection for the census, Sullivan 180's Program Director Saraid Gonzalez, who is also Sullivan County's Census Coordinator, was in South Fallsburg last Tuesday with State Senator Jen Metzger in order to get the word out on being counted.

“It's just so important that our communities fill out the census, especially communities like Fallsburg, Monticello, and Liberty, which really need the resources that get distributed based on population and based on need,” said Senator Metzger.

Currently, Sullivan County has a 36 percent response rate for the 2020 census count, and Fallsburg has an even lower response rate, at 21 percent.

Stationed outside the Fallsburg Fire Department, Gonzalez and Metzger hoped to catch workers during the shift change at Murray's Chicken.

During their time in front of the Fallsburg Fire Department, they gave out 50 cloth masks and several hand sanitizers to the community along with information about the census count.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hispanic and other minority populations have been hurt the hardest, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

According to the CDC, Hispanic communities are affected because of the lack of healthcare. Many in those communities have frontline jobs such as grocery store workers, waste management, cleaning, and food delivery.

Furthermore, according to the 2010 census, 38 percent of the population in South Fallsburg is Hispanic or Latino.

South Fallsburg was also the location for a COVID-19 testing site in May 2020, and Public Health Director Nancy McGraw said then, “We have chosen this location and time to specifically reach out to some hard-hit groups: our food processing and agricultural workers, those with limited transportation, and people who have no health insurance.”

Gonzalez said one of the roadblocks she had run into while doing the census count is having Hispanic and Latino communities participate.

She said many are afraid to speak to someone and give their private information.

“We let them know it is confidential and stress the importance of the census [when it comes] to funding … especially for Hispanics and the Latinx communities,” said Gonzalez.

Metzger added that services and funding that would go to locations like South Fallsburg depend on that data, and it will help those who are under the poverty line.

Metzger said, “We know we have struggling people in these communities, but they're not being counted. So that is my concern.”