A crowd of thousands gathered in downtown Washington, D.C., Saturday as part of the nationwide anti-Trump ‘No Kings’ rallies with a long list of White House actions they were protesting against: mass deportations of undocumented immigrants; National Guard deployments in Democratic-controlled cities ostensibly to combat crime; the looming expiration of Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies, which is the main cause of the ongoing government shutdown.

But Saturday’s event also was an opportunity for dozens of participating federal employees, many of whom have lost their jobs and seen their years of experience be discarded, to come together.

“Connecting in person with people matters, and so building those bonds with fellow activists is really important,” said Mike Henning, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 1534, which represents employees at the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development. “It takes a small number to make change, and protests are a way to see who is the most active, who is the most present and try to accentuate that.”

Henning worked as a democracy officer for more than three decades at USAID — which the Trump administration has effectively eliminated as part of its push to shrink the size of the federal government — before participating in the deferred resignation program through which more than 150,000 civil servants left government service.