Vice Pres. Kamala Harris displays support for women and minority entrepreneurship with surprise visit to DC coffee shop
(The Slice): American small businesses have been struggling to recover from the pandemic experiencing a variety of challeges from staffing to supply shotages and access to funding.
Last week Vice Pres. Kamala Harris met with Hispanic leaders and small business owners to tell them about the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal and the Build Back Better Agenda and hear their concerns. On Monday, she did a surprise follow-up visit at the Colada Shop, a D.C.-based Cuban café chain founded by Daniella Senior – who took part in the meeting. During that meeting, Ms. Senior told the Vice President about her experience migrating to the U.S., the challenges of raising capital as a woman of color, and how she launched and successfully grew Colada Shop. Mayor Muriel Bowser joined them.
Senior had talked about the challenges she encountered with acquiring capital for her business, an issue that many start-ups face that is sometimes a greater challenge for women and minoirty entrepreneurs.
She ordered coffee and three empanadas -- chicken, beef and veggie -- but Vice Pres. Kamala Harris came to a DC coffess shor for more than lunch. She was there to trumpet the Biden Administration's Build Back Better Agenda.
The VP also took the opportunity to advocate for women returning back to work and to address how the two pieces of signature legislation Pres. Biden proposed is also intended to help small businesses "through better roads and bridges, better transit, and affordable, high-speed internet. " The Build Back Better Agenda which will lower the cost of childcare for working parents enabling more women to return to work.
"Daniella’s work here at Colada and her other businesses is a prime example of why these two pieces of legislation are critical and are about everyday folks trying to contribute to their community, contributing and growing our workforce, and in that way, essential to all of us if we want a productive and an economically healthy community,” Harris said.
Since taking office, the Vice President has personally visited several small business owners she met on the campaign. For instnace, a White House official detailed that in March, after visiting Fibre Space in Arlington, Virginia owned by Danielle Romanetti – the Vice President returned to update her on the American Rescue Plan and see how her business was faring. In May, after meeting Eldraen, a USPS letter carrier and National Guardsmen in Connecticut, the Vice President followed up to discuss making childcare affordable and paid family leave accessible.
While at Colada Vice Pres. Harris also greeted customers, encouraging them to continue to support small businesses.
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