Stand up, sit down, lie down, it doesn't matter what you are doing, as long as you are counted.

Just don't let that census form that will be arriving by mail in mid-March sit at the bottom of your junk mail pile.

Please open it up and fill in the 10 simple questions, doing so is vital to the health of our neighborhood, our city, and our state.

This could be the single most important thing that you do in the next couple of weeks.

What's at stake is fair representation and money, approximately $400 billion dollars per year: Money from the federal government is allocated based on census population. So Collinwood's (like all communities) slice of the pie is directly affected by the census count. Each missed person in the count means approximately $1200 a year that a community won't receive.

We work hard and we pay our federal taxes. Being counted in the census will help assure that our fair share comes back to  Collinwood.

You don't have to look far to see the impact of these dollars: our schools, hospitals, senior centers, roads (yes, they could be worse) and many other parts of our city benefit.

Census population also determines the amount of congressional seats that each state will have.

Given the state of our struggling economy, there is particular concern that more people are 'doubling up' : people living with others who are less likely to be counted. Census groups are urging people to make sure they are included in their household count, even if they are just living there temporarily.

Our city is putting a lot of effort into making sure that all of us are counted. The city has formed a 'Complete Count' committee, and are looking for concerned citizens to help in this important work. If you're interested, here's a website:planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/census2010

Can you be counted on ??