For the second time in recent weeks representatives of the Biden Harris White House are visiting Erie.

Today they were touring two projects funded through American Rescue Plan dollars that came into the City and County of Erie.

The tour started at the brand new warehouse for Berry Global, a plastics company that at its Erie plant site makes caps for drink bottles and packaging.

Heather Boushey, Chief Economist for the Invest in America Cabinet at the White House was part of the White House team taking a look at how the investments played out in Erie. "We wanted to come to Erie to see how these investments are playing out, and how the community, how people, how business leaders, community leaders  are thinking about these investments and making the most of them--how it's affecting people and families here in this community," Boushey said.

The new warehouse went on line April 1st of this year.  It's where they store and move the caps and closures that Berry Global makes--millions a day, billions a year. Plant Manager Bob Guthrie said although the new warehouse is smaller, since they designed it from the ground up, it's much more efficient. "We were working shuttling to a warehouse a couple miles away, so we've eliminated 6,000 trucks trips a year which is a whole bunch of carbon footprint. It's more energy efficient, we were able to lay it out here from the beginning and Ricardo and his team have done a great job with that," Guthrie said.

The White House visitors and local officials then headed east to see Grow Erie --the greenhouse vision of local leader Gary Horton and the Minority Community Investment Coalition now taking shape, after 8 years of planning.

Amy Cuzzola-Kern, Special Project Consultant from the Erie County Redevelopment Authority said, "We broke ground in the spring and we're looking to finish the structure at the end of the month, early November and go green in January."

Those behind this project are thankful too for the ARP funding boost.  But Cuzzola-Kern let the White House officials know that they've applied twice for the Department of Agriculture's Urban Infrastructure project grant, and not received funding.  But when 600 projects across the country apply and just $7-million is awarded nationwide for 16 projects, Cuzzola-Kern said less that 1% get support.

We asked if the White House officials heard her concerns. "I definitely think they did and I think you know more importantly, they saw our progress, they see what we're doing and they can go out and advocate for us which is what we need.  We need people to tell our story - because it's a good story," Cuzzola-Kern added.

The stop was not billed in any way as a political campaign event, but with just days to go until the November 5 election, Erie is getting a lot of attention.