Vice President Kamala Harris heard from struggling small business owners at a Denver restaurant Tuesday as part of a stop on the Biden administration’s cross-country tour to promote the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.

Accompanied at the roundtable by her husband, Doug Emhoff, and Gov. Jared Polis, Harris listed elements of the American Rescue Plan intended to boost the pandemic-ravaged economy, adding that she wasn’t there to sell the massive spending plan so much as explain its benefits so people don’t miss out on them.

“We’re here for one specific reason,” she said. “We want to get the word out about the help that is available so we make sure people take advantage of the help.”

While Harris was in Denver on the second day of the “Help is Here” tour – following stops Monday in Las Vegas, where she visited a vaccine clinic and a culinary institute – President Joe Biden appeared at a minority-owned flooring business in suburban Philadelphia to discuss grants and loans available to businesses.

The Biden administration estimates that 400,000 small businesses have closed because of the pandemic and millions more are barely surviving. His aid package includes a $28 billion grant program to support restaurants and drinking establishments, along with $15 billion in flexible grants for businesses.

As Harris and Emhoff took notes during the discussion at Maria Empanada as owner Lorena Cantarovici, who began making empanadas in her garage after emigrating from Argentina with just $300, told how her small shop grew over the years into three locations, “and then COVID hit.”

“One of my blessings here is to give jobs,” she said, but as business dwindled a year ago she was forced to lay off most of her workers.

Cantarovici said various relief programs have allowed her to rehire 80% of her team but added that it could take two years to get back to full capacity and “recover all this loss.”

“We need the restaurant full of people. We need 100% of capacity to make the model (work),” she said. “I can’t wait to be back.”

Harris and Emhoff did their part by departing with empanadas in tow.

Gabriela Salazar, whose Colorado Artisans represents more than 100 artisans in Denver, estimated more than 90% are unemployed or collecting unemployment. Salazar, a small business owner for 30 years, told Harris that help from the Small Business Administration has “kept me afloat but more is needed.”

Harris added that she particularly wanted to get the word out about the relief plan’s expanded child tax credits, which could help cut in half the number of American children living in poverty. She thanked U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet for the years the Colorado Democrat has spent championing the proposal.

Emhoff, an entertainment industry lawyer, was scheduled to spend Wednesday in Albuquerque, N.M., and Harris was scheduled to join Biden in Georgia on Friday.

In brief remarks at the restaurant, Polis said he thinks Colorado is poised for a “very good recovery,” pointing to the state’s outdoor recreation opportunities and the accelerated vaccination schedule that could see most state residents vaccinated by the end of May.

“We couldn’t do it without the federal support,” he said.

The plan, signed into law last week by Biden, also features direct payments of $1,400 for most single taxpayers, or $2,800 for married couples filing jointly, plus $1,400 per dependent with the payments phasing out for people with higher incomes.

It also includes extended federal unemployment benefits of $300 a week through early September, plus $350 billion for state, local and tribal governments, $130 billion for K-12 schools and about $50 billion to expand COVID-19 testing, among other provisions.

Before the event at the restaurant on South Broadway, Harris held a virtual chat with the operators of a Fort Lupton vaccine clinic.

Harris had planned to visit the clinic, Plan De Salud Del Valle Inc., but instead spoke with its staff over Zoom because the airplane she flew to Las Vegas and Los Angeles on Monday developed mechanical issues. A smaller backup plane was sent to fly her to Denver. The switch relegated most of her staff, Secret Service detail and a small group of reporters to fly on a cavernous cargo plane.

In the call, Harris praised the clinic staff’s work, making particular note of the clinic’s focus on helping minority communities get vaccinated.

“The president and I, from the beginning of this, have made it one of our highest priorities to make sure that we are taking into account racial disparities, and that we supply folks on the ground with the resources you need so that we have equitable outcomes,” she said.

The sales pitch was leaving Republicans cold.

A spokesman for the Colorado Republican Party called the package a “costly boondoggle” in a release that called out Bennet and his fellow Democratic U.S. Senator, John Hickenlooper, as well as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“Instead of working with Republicans to create a bill that was targeted and tied directly to the COVID-19 crisis, the Biden-Harris Administration chose to pass a partisan bill that looked more like an expensive, liberal wish list,” said Joe Jackson, who pointed out that not a single Republican lawmaker voted for the legislative package.

“Harris’ visit to Colorado to sell this costly boondoggle won’t make Coloradans forget that Bennet, Hickenlooper, and the entire Colorado Democrat Congressional delegation chose to follow Schumer and Pelosi in wasting their tax dollars on things that have nothing to do with COVID relief.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.