A passion fueled by first-hand experience 

When Rose Sternik was 14, her family became homeless. Her mother, after a divorce in Indiana, came to Massachusetts to be with  relatives - but there wasn't room for them. So Rose, her mother, and her younger brother ended up in shelters for several years. There she witnessed how homelessness becomes a trap. If her mother managed to save some money, she’d be expected to leave, even though she didn’t have enough for car repairs and rent.

“I saw first-hand how poverty compounds on itself, becoming near impossible to escape” in a system that “throws [people] to the curb before they are sufficiently stable,” she says.

Those experiences fueled the passion that underlies her work with the resistance. Sternik, 29, serves on the communications committee for No Kings 3, helping with the website, graphic design, and project management. She’s also a member of Cranston Forward.

Sternik’s family eventually moved in with her grandparents, and she enrolled in college. But she dropped out to move in with her boyfriend and work to support herself – handling logistics, customer service, and account management in the supply chain industry.

Today, she owns a home with her husband in Cranston and is attending school full-time, studying computer science online.

Sternik is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and attended occasional protests, but her work with No Kings 3 is her first foray into serious activism. And though it’s a struggle to stay on top of everything, she’s energized by the people she met. “Everyone is so wildly different – different backgrounds, personalities, strengths – it’s amazing,” she says.

Describing herself as a neurodivergent Lebanese-Irish queer woman, Sternik says she was surprised and heartened by “how effortlessly I was embraced and supported” by her fellow volunteers.

“I have found a lot of purpose through volunteering and being a part of this movement gives me hope for the future,” she says. “There are so many wonderful and passionate people all over Rhode Island coming together to fight for our country.”

Sternik hopes that No Kings 3 will inspire more people to get involved. She sees strength in numbers: The fight to defeat fascism requires “mass mobilization.”

“If we do not stand up and demand an end to this regime, then we effectively cede our rights to fascism,” she says. “We have already lost decades of progress for civil rights as women's bodies are policed, trans people are dehumanized, and our friends are racially profiled in the streets. It will take a long time to undo the damage but we can decide how to rebuild.”

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