About 500 people lined both sides of Pt. Brown Avenue in Ocean Shores Saturday afternoon as part of a nationwide campaign by the social movement organization Indivisible and other groups to protest the policies and actions of the Donald Trump administration.

Protesters of all ages carried signs of all types and messages as passersby in cars and on motorbikes honked and waved, mostly in support, for close to two hours. A smattering of counter-protesters, mainly in pick-up trucks, flew Trump flags and offered a few one-finger salutes.

Juliana Kim of NPR wrote, “Organizers said more than 1,300 ‘Hands Off!’ rallies of varying sizes took place on Saturday.” According to the Los Angeles Times, more than 500,000 people nationwide RSVP’d to attend a protest, while UPI reported that number at more than 600,000.

According to the official website, “Indivisible started as the Indivisible Guide, a Google Doc guide to organizing locally to pressure your elected officials to resist Trump’s agenda. It caught fire as millions of people picked up the guide and its name — Indivisible — and organized their own local Indivisible groups to put the guide into action. These new Indivisible activists formed a nationwide movement of people taking matters into their own hands to build their own power through collective action.”

Local resident and long-time Indivisible member Corrine Holden was one of the organizers for Saturday’s Ocean Shores protest. Holden said the purpose of Saturday’s protest was to “object to the policies of Donald Trump that are impinging on our rights.”

According to Holden, the citizens of Ocean Shores are concerned about numerous issues under the current presidential administration.

“The biggest issue in terms of our population here are the issues of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid; they’re essential to our lives here, so having those things threatened gets everybody out,” Holden said. “They’re concerned about veterans affairs and the support for those issues, the education department and our schools, there are issues for everybody.”

Holden said she was pleasantly surprised at the turnout for the protest in Ocean Shores and that exercising the constitutional right to protest is fundamentally important.

“We have an Indivisible chapter here in Ocean Shores, and we have since the beginning of the first Trump term. We have been coming out and protesting whenever we think things aren’t good for our lives. We started to hear about this nationwide movement, and we had to participate. We had no idea we’d get a turnout like this,” Holden said. “Our membership wants to be out and visible, so we’re going to keep doing this kind of thing as often as we can.”

Hundreds of thousands of people participated in “Hands Off” protests and rallies across the country, several of which took place in Washington state, including the 500-strong protest in Ocean Shores and a smaller gathering in Raymond.

A Trump supporter drives past the “Hands Off” protest on Pt. Brown Avenue in Ocean Shores.