At first, there were just 10 or so people. Now, 20 to 25 show up, new faces joining every month.

The event is organized by Jennifer Plante, who contributes to the Resistance with a locally focused demonstration – in a conservative-leaning town no less.

The 43-year-old Harrisville resident was inspired after attending the original Hands Off demonstration in Providence in April of last year. She wanted to bring home that spirit of solidarity.

A member of the Burrillville Democratic Town Committee since 2023, and now the vice chair, Plante asked committee members what they thought of a local rally, and all were in favor, she says.

Through emails and Facebook, Instagram and BlueSky posts, she spread the word. Some people, she says, “were kind of hesitant because this is a red town” – but protesters have mostly received a positive response. On a typical Sunday, they get “three middle fingers and 500 honks [of support],” she says.

For six years, Plante was a case manager for people who suffered from mental health disorders and homelessness. Now she’s a full-time activist, but she hasn’t forgotten her experiences working with homeless people, including a client who froze to death on a Woonsocket park bench. It sparked a “passion for justice” that continues to motivate her – as well as her personal experience as a recovering addict who will celebrate 15 years of sobriety in September.

“The Trump administration is no friend of the homeless, that's for sure,” she says. “He wants them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps… Just get better, get a job, get an apartment. How can they even function when you don't even know where your next meal is gonna come from, or where you're gonna lay your head?”

Plante also leads Indivisible of Northern Rhode Island. She hopes that her activism will ultimately lead to “regime change, on all the levels, local, state and national” and will help “save democracy, because I believe it's in peril.”

Want to join Plante in saving democracy? Sign up here.