The owners of Santa Cruz's Penny Ice Creamery will be "in the House" for President Obama's State of the Union Address on Tuesday.
The pair, Kendra Baker and Zach Davis, will join their spouses in first lady Michelle Obama's box in the House of Representatives chamber when the president delivers his annual address, according to a press statement from the White House late Monday. The first lady invited the owners of the organic ice cream shop to highlight how federal stimulus funds enabled small business loans.
Vice President Joe Biden called the pair in November to thank them for a video they posted to YouTube, lauding the Obama administration for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. By opening the business in August with a $250,000 loan, the pair employed 11 workers and hired 20 other businesses to renovate and design their Cedar Street shop.
"After the call from the vice president, we assumed that was the end of it," Davis said Monday before preparing to leave on a 6 a.m. flight Tuesday. "We were pretty floored."
Davis said he, Baker and their spouses have been invited to the White House for a reception before the speech and will return there after leaving the Capitol. They hope to meet the president.
"It would be great to shake his hand," Davis said.
The statement from the White House doesn't specify whether the president will mention Baker and Davis during his address, but Davis hopes so.
"We're definitely wondering if we are just there to watch or whether there will be some mention of us," he said. "Obviously, we'd be thrilled if there was."
Davis said he is excited for his first trip to the nation's capital, even though the Santa Cruz contingent is coming right back Wednesday.
"I'm nervous, but what I'm trying to focus on is that what we're doing at the shop is unique," he said. "But what is not unique is that we're a small business like hundreds of thousands of others in the country. It's really humbling that they asked us to stand in for all those millions of people out there."
Also sitting with the first lady will be survivors and loved ones of the victims from the Jan. 8 mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz. that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords wounded. They include the parents of 9-year-old Christina Green, who died in the incident, and Daniel Hernandez, a Giffords staff member who tended to his boss during the shooting.
0 comments:
Post a Comment