Michelle Pack, left, and Kathy Bozinski set off a confetti popper during a watch party for President Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday at Luzerne County Democratic Party headquarters in Wilkes-Barre.
Patrick Kernan | Times Leader
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Luzerne County Democratic Party Chair Kathy Bozinski takes a video of Vice President Kamala Harris being sworn in.
Patrick Kernan | Times Leader
WILKES-BARRE — With the pop of a few confetti cannons — and some champagne bottles — organizers in the Luzerne County Democratic Party celebrated the swearing-in of President Joe Biden.
Volunteers who helped organize in our area for Biden’s campaign gathered into the party’s headquarters on Public Square, gathering around a television to watch Biden’s inauguration, and to celebrate Vice President Kamala Harris’ elevation to the office, the first woman to hold the roll in American history.
For party chair Kathy Bozinski, it was an emotional day, and a long time coming.
“It’s like a lightness rose off my shoulders this morning,” Bozinski said about how she was feeling.
Bozinski said she was impressed and inspired by the positive message that was carried by Biden and others who spoke during the inauguration.
“That inaugural ceremony was so powerful, so uplifting,” she said. “It delivered what I anticipated: a call for unity. President Biden … went out of his way to talk about everyone in our country, whether you supported Biden or not, and to make it really clear he’s going to be the President and do what’s good for America and for everyone in America.”
Bozinski spoke particularly highly of “The Hill We Climb,” the stirring poem read by Amanda Gorman, the youngest person to deliver an inaugural poem in American history at only 22 years old. Gorman used her poem to both mourn those lost from COVID-19 and express hope for the future.
“I think she had an apolitical freedom to really address the divisions that are happening, really address where we are in history and really address our hopes and aspirations for the future,” Bozinski said of the poem went on. “The whole day had me in tears, but her reading had me more in tears than anything else.”
But to Bozinski, one of the most emotional parts of the day was seeing Harris take on the highest nationally-elected office that a woman has been sent to so far in our nation’s history.
“What a breakthrough,” she said, emotion evident in her voice. “We have prayed and hoped and dreamed and fought for a moment like this today. It’s … I don’t know, I’m tearing up again. It’s that important to me personally.”
Michelle Pack, a volunteer for the party, told reporters that, as someone who’s been a feminist for as long as she can remember, seeing Harris taking on the role was an emotional experience.
“For a strong woman raised by a strong woman, to see this day happen,” she said. “I mean, it’s only been 100 years since we got the vote. And we still have so many obstacles in front of us… but just to have a woman in power like that, to show other women and children, especially young women, what’s possible is just incredible.
“And the message of unity that Biden spoke about is so long overdue,” she went on. “I look forward the most to trying to heal.”
Pack said that she is incredibly proud of being able to have been involved in the work.
“When you set a goal and when you work so hard against all odds to achieve it, I don’t think there’s any better feeling in the world,” she said.