Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, slipped on aprons Wednesday afternoon to serve meatloaf to a few hundred homeless people at a soup kitchen in Wilmington, Del.
Biden told a local news station that the long lines outside the Emmanuel Dining Room highlight the need for an economic stimulus package, which he said he hopes President-elect Barack Obama can sign as early as Inauguration Day.
"A lot of people are hurting," Biden told the reporter. "This is part of the pulse. You can just see when things pick up here. They're not good everywhere else, but a lot of middle-class folks are getting killed too. So it's the number one priority for our administration.
"This is kinda home. And it's important for people to know who are standing out there in line that there's a lot of people who are thinking about them," said Biden, whose sister is a board member of Emanuel, the news station reported.
Tomorrow the Bidens will attend Christmas Mass together and continue a longtime tradition of hosting their entire family at their Delaware home.
Also tomorrow, Biden's granddaughters are to reveal the name they picked out for his new German shepherd puppy that's moving into the vice presidential residence with him next month.