A group of some 120 1199ers traveled from Washington D.C on January 21 to witness the historic inauguration and swearing-in of President Barack Obama for his second term as President of The United States. They were invited as thanks for all their exceptional work during this year’s Presidential campaign.

“It was a moment that was a dream come true,” said Renella Mitchell, a surgical technologist at Sound Shore Medical Center in New Rochelle, NY. “With all the hard work and the campaigning and door knocking it was a dream that we accomplished.”

Mitchell worked as a Member Political Organizer in New York and also traveled to Pennsylvania to help get out the vote as a Weekend Warrior.

1199ers were dressed in their familiar purple as they joined the more than one million people who gathered on the National Mall for Inauguration Day. The group bubbled with an excitement that helped stave off the January cold.

“It’s history and I’ve never done anything like this before. I bragged about it to everybody,” said a smiling Vanessa Emmanuelli, who works in cosmetics sales at Rite Aid 3647 in Newark, NJ. “I’m just on top of the world and going to be talking about it for a long time.” Hilda Haye was among the six Massachusetts Region members who rode the bus down to Washington from 1199SEIU’s Manhattan headquarters.

“I was excited for our president to get another chance in the White House to finish a lot of unfinished business like healthcare and immigration,” says Haye, a diagnostic technician at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. “Over the years immigration has taken a back burner with every president. We have so many undocumented workers here and they have no way out of hiding. They’re suffering and scared to talk. They have no voice.”

Haye worked as a Member Political Organizer, campaigning for Sen. Elizabeth Warren and traveling to New Hampshire to door knock and get out the vote for President Obama. “I couldn’t find the words for my happiness,” she says of the Obama and Warren victories. “I couldn’t sleep until I knew they won.”

Myrtha Jean, a unit coordinator at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Brighton, MA was touched by the message of unity in President Obama’s inaugural address. “When he said we all have to come together and help each other for the future that was good,” said Jean. “It’s very difficult, but if we can keep close to each other, we really can help each other through hard times. It will get better and we can learn to cooperate.”

“Today really made me proud,” said Renella Mitchell. “It showed that we are all people standing together and we will go forward. This shows that spiritually we are all connected and there is a superior being that brings us all together. We really are a blessed people.”