Dream Big Children's Center
Monrovia, California
Q All right. Madam Vice President, welcome home.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Hi, Alex. Good to be home.
Q Good to have you back in California.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's really great to be home.
Q What does it mean for you to be at a summit like this in your home state, as one of the leaders of it? And what are you most excited about in terms of the summit?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: So I'll talk about the summit. But let's just first talk about this business, because Dream Big — I've been hearing about this business and this business owner. It's a small business right here in the heart of California. She now has five. And it's a business that serves the parents and the children of the community, in particular special needs children.
And the reason that I've been hearing about her work is not only because of what she does in such a loving way to help parents parent, but she did it through the pandemic when she, for just a short while, was, you know, under the threat that so many small businesses were of closing.
And the parents that she serves were desperate to know that she would be able to stay open. And she did. And parents bring their children here five days a week for four hours a day. The parents of this community rely on the support that she gives their children throughout these early stages of their development. And if she had to close down, it would have had a profound if not lifelong impact on those children, much less their families.
So I'm here to highlight the importance of our small businesses, because they do this out of love, out of concern, and being a member of the community, and with a sense of responsibility to the community.
And I'm also here to highlight then that it is small businesses like this that have been supported through our Small Business Administration, the administrators here, because we give loans that are able to help these businesses grow and then expand the service they provide to the community.
So I'm here to talk about that and also the importance of the PPP program, which allowed her to stay open through the height of the crisis of the pandemic.
On the summit: So one of the important components of the summit, from my perspective, is the work that we've been doing with the Call to Action, which is bringing CEOs together at historic numbers to invest in the northern part of Central America.
And we announced yesterday that as a result of the work that we only started a year ago, we've already raised $3.2 billion, which is about investing in these countries that are our neighbors, as the United States — because we are also a member of the Western Hemisphere.
And one of the things that is without question: When we are able to improve the prosperity and stability of our neighbors, we as a nation benefit. So the work that we have been doing in the summit has been to bring CEOs together, heads of state of a number of the organiz- — of the countries in the Western Hemisphere are going to be here, to talk about how we can continue to collaborate.
But specifically on the issue of the economic investment that our CEOs are making, specifically on this subject of the beauty and strength of public-private partnerships, I'm very excited about the work that is being done and that will continue to be done.
Q And especially great to be here (inaudible).
(Cross-talk by reporters.)
THE VICE PRESIDENT: And it's — in particular, yeah, it's kind of nice that it just happens to be in Los Angeles, where I live. So it's been nice to be home for a change.
