In the last few weeks and even days, the world has shifted dramatically. America is drowning in information, and business-as-usual as halted. With Census Day right around the corner— April 1st— it’s more important than ever to convey why the 2020 Census matters and how easy it is to do from home, without ever having to come in contact with anyone. Census response impacts so many of the community needs we are directly feeling:funding for emergency services, health care, school lunch programs, SNAP, and more.

Join us for a two-hour virtual create-a-thon event to encourage hard-to-count communities to take the 2020 Census. We need creatives, storytellers, and community advocates like you to help develop digital media assets that are responsive and sensitive to today's environment.

We’ll be developing content specifically for:

- Families with kids of gender nonbinary children with PFLAG
- Families in temporary or transitional housing with Count All Kids
- General audiences to convey that they can fill out the census from home, and to make the connection between census and public health

Looking for something fun to do while you're home and everything is closed? You could win a prize for getting creative with us to help promote the Census!

Join us along with fellow community members, students, and activists from around LA, as we create digital media to spread awareness about the importance of participating in the Census this April.

Many communities are overlooked for funding or lack representation in government, including people of color, immigrants, people with limited English proficiency, those experiencing homelessness, renters, low income households, single-parent families, LGBTQ, and young children.

Let's create content to help make sure these LA communities are properly counted next month during the 2020 Census!

Join us for the Queens Census Create-a-thon!

Queens is home to some of the most undercounted districts, resulting in vastly underfunded and underrepresented communities. The Queens Create-a-thon invites Queens-based community groups and their diverse constituents, as well as anyone available to help and put their skills to good use, to join us in ensuring everyone is counted. Together and with the support of the US Census Bureau, we will produce a range of creative campaign content in as many languages as we can manage, that community members can help spread to their families, colleagues, friends, and neighbors.

Over the course of 4 hours, participants will help determine which messages their communities need to hear, connect with a diverse group of talented people, and collaboratively generate digital media and compelling messages that spread awareness about the 2020 Census. Help us get the message out that there is not a citizenship question on the census form; that the constitution stipulates that personal data from the Census cannot be shared with ICE or other government agencies; that people can fill out the census online and by phone in 13 languages total, and language support is available in 59 languages; and that if you cannot vote this is something that you can do for your family, for your community, and for yourself.

Join us and help ensure that our communities are counted!

Registration required.

No one knows your community better than you. So, whether you want to design a sticker, draw a poster, write a poem, sing a song, or choreograph a dance, Lincoln Center teaching artists will be on hand to help you shape your ideas. Come collaborate on fun and accessible art projects to help reach the people in your lives and share the importance of the census.

Lincoln Center, in partnership with Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and the U.S. Census Bureau, wants to ensure that our communities get their fair share, especially people in historically under-counted groups. These include people of color, immigrants, LGBTQIA people, people experiencing homelessness, people with low incomes, renters, single-parent households, people with limited English proficiency, and children under the age of five.

Why the Census Matters

The Census, a once-a-decade population count, affects your representation in government, and determines how much funding your community receives. When a person isn’t counted, they lose out on about $2,000 every year for TEN YEARS in direct services like SNAP, WIC, hospitals, schools, transportation, and road maintenance.

Agenda (subject to change)

2:00pm–2:30pm Welcome and orientation

2:30pm–5:15pm Work on art projects in groups

5:15pm–6:00pm Final share-out and closing remarks

All ages welcome

Light snacks and refreshments will be provided throughout the event.

We welcome speakers of all languages. Please provide your preferred language during registration and we will make every effort to provide translation

A variety of creative supplies will be provided at the event, but we encourage you to bring any of your own materials to use in your art-making (e.g. instruments, visual art media, laptops with software such as Photoshop, InDesign, GarageBand, etc.

The 2010 census missed more than 10% of all children under age 5 in the U.S. When we miss young children in the census, it has serious consequences for them, their families, their communities and our nation – with many of those consequences lasting for at least 10 years. With the 2020 census fast approaching, it is time to make sure we count all our children

That's why we're calling all content creators to join forces with Partnership for America's Children and the Census Open Innovation Labs for the nation's first-ever creative workshop to develop the content needed to reach families with kids under five leading up to the 2020 Census.

Over the course of four informative and festive hours, we’ll learn about the importance of the kids undercount, connect with people passionate about Census 2020, and collaboratively generate digital media and compelling messages that spread awareness about the the 2020 count within families with kids under five.