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Erica Williams-Powell spends much of her day bedridden at home in Cincinnati, because of her sickle cell anaemia. She rarely ventures out. Her life, her husband says, is “plain, and racked with pain”. Then, on News Year's Day, she received a phone call. She was not only going to the inauguration, but to the ball, where she will meet Barack Obama.

At a time when businesses are cutting back and charitable giving has plummeted, Mrs Williams-Powell is one of about 400 disadvantaged Americans, including the terminally ill, disabled war veterans and hurricane victims, who were chosen for an allexpenses paid trip to Mr Obama's swearing-in, courtesy of a black businessman and philanthropist.

They arrived on Sunday night, from 23 states across the country, and were checked into 335 rooms at the JW Marriott hotel in Washington, three blocks from the White House. Today, they will have unobstructed views of the inaugural parade from a heated, glass-enclosed 12th-floor terrace.

This extraordinary group was sent to Washington by Earl Stafford, a Virginia multimillionaire who made his fortune in the weapons business and who now runs an eponymous foundation serving the marginalised. He says that the final bill for his largesse will be about $2million.

In October his brother-in-law told him that the Marriott was offering an inaugural package: 300 rooms, four suites and $200,000 worth of food, for $1million. He bought it the next day. When word spread of his intentions, his foundation was inundated with requests.

“He's given us everything, everything,” Mr Williams-Powell said, after a Martin Luther King prayer breakfast yesterday groaning with food. “He flew us in yesterday. He sent us the plane tickets.” Like the other winners, the Williams-Powells have tickets to Mr Obama's swearing-in, free guided tours and tickets to a special People's Inaugural Ball tonight, which Mr Obama is expected to attend. The two were fitted for a tuxedo and ball gown soon after they arrived.

Mr Stafford has told the hotel to make sure his guests get everything they want, with no comfort spared. Barbers and beauticians are on hand. He says the main object of the three-day event is to bring together people of means with the disadvantaged. When his guests return home, his organisation and affiliated groups will continue to work with them.

“When things are good, people don't need philanthropy as much,” Mr Stafford told USA Today. “It's when the economy has a downturn that businesses have to step up. People are hurting, and no one is bailing out the people. We must become our brothers' keepers, indeed.”

Of their lives after they leave Washington, he said: “It would be a sin if we brought these people in their distressed situations and brought them to a party, to festivities and celebrations, and sent them home in the same condition as they came. We would be patronising,” he says.

Mrs Williams-Powell said: “We have never had a chance to do anything like this. Now we are a part of history. We feel proud and honoured.”

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