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On the anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration and just hours after the federal government went into a partial shutdown, tens of thousands of protesters – most waving signs and many clad in signature pink hats – flooded Denver’s Civic Center Park and streets around the state Capitol Saturday morning for the city’s second Women’s March, as organizers vowed to channel a year’s worth of outrage into electoral power.

“We’re here to protest. We’re sick of the government, we’re sick of the shutdown, we’re just sick of everything,” said Catherine King of Denver, who took part in the Denver march a day short of one year earlier. “This country is just kind of upside-down right now, and we’re out to tell them we’re going to change it.”

Pausing to wave encouragement to passing marchers, she added, “Let’s hope we can turn this whole thing around.”

The sea of handmade signs expressed support for universal health care, the environment and women’s rights while denouncing Trump and nearly every imaginable policy of the president’s administration, along with messages mocking Trump’s Twitter habit and his hair, sometimes in the same image.

“Tweet women with respect,” read one sign. “This is what patriotism looks like,” read another. “I march like a girl” and “I vote like a girl,” read more than a few signs and T-shirts.

The march, one of an estimated 250 planned Saturday and Sunday around the world, was a chance to express anger at the Trump administration and the president’s policies, organizers and participants said, but they also said they hoped it could lead to change.

“Last year it was borne out of frustration, it was reactive, and I think we felt depressed and dazed and scared,” said organizer Lisa Cutter, one of the march’s four board members and a Democratic candidate for a Jefferson County House seat.

“This year, I think people are needing another boost, but it’s less about venting and feeling upset and more about, hey, it’s our job to take back our government. That’s what we’re hoping to do with this – motivate people and inspire them.”

More than 100,000 people filled the park and marched through downtown Denver streets last year on what authorities say could have been the largest single-day demonstration in U.S. history, with as many as 4 million taking part at more than 650 events. This year’s turnout appeared to have been closer to 50,000, but official crowd estimates had yet to be released at press time.

Marchers also gathered Saturday in Pueblo, Grand Junction and Broomfield, and a Women’s March was scheduled for Sunday in Colorado Springs.

The focus of this year’s march, Cutter said, would be on “getting people to march to the polls.”

Dozens of activists moved throughout the crowd, registering voters, signing up volunteers and gathering petition signatures for candidates hoping to make Colorado’s June primary ballot.

“First we march, then we organize,” the event’s planners said on its website, which listed gatherings scheduled through the weekend around the state.

“I think we’re still scared,” Cutter added with a laugh, “but now we’re thinking we’ve got to dig in and figure out what we’re going to do. It became clear after the dust settled, it became clear we were going to be in this for the long haul.”

“Today we march for our sister, mothers, grandmothers, and yes, for our sons,” said Denver Mayor Michael Hancock at a brief rally that preceded two hours of marching a mile-long course that circled the Capitol before returning to the park for more than a dozen speeches that shared stories from the past year and urged participants to take out their anger at the ballot box.

Among more than a dozen speakers set to address a rally following the march was Jeanette Vizguerra, a Mexican immigrant who took sanctuary inside a nearby church for 86 days last year and was named by Time Magazine among the most influential 100 people in the world.

“I am in the army of gray-haired women. Today we rise.”” read a sign that bore the signatures of loved ones carried by Gail Yarrow, who visited with a friend on a park bench as marchers gathered.

“I don’t care what your color is, I don’t care what your sexuality is, I don’t care what your religion is,” she said. “We deserve to all be treated equally.”

“I can’t say how proud I am to march with you and the millions – millions – of others rallying across Colorado and the country for fairness, justice, opportunity and equality for everyone,” said Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne, one of a half dozen Democratic gubernatorial candidates with a presence at the march. She noted that her favorite sign that morning was one that read, “We are all snowflakes, and if you put us together, we’re an avalanche.”

“We’ve got to demand change here in Colorado and everywhere,” she added. “We must persist through the 2018 elections and every election that follows.”

Colorado Democratic Party Chair Morgan Carroll echoed Cutter’s comments as she held out a clipboard, asking protesters to sign up as volunteers.

“Last year, people were very stressed out. I think we were shocked and outraged. This year, we realize we have to take all that outrage and convert it into reality and results – getting people registered to vote, to turn out at the polls. If we want to see anything different for women in this state and in this country, that means getting involved at the grassroots level, that means organizing, but we need to point that to voter registration and getting people elected who are going to do right by women,” she said.

Carroll, a former state Senate president from Aurora who lost a bid for Congress the same night Trump was elected, said the state of affairs under the Republican administration was worse than she’d anticipated a year ago when it began.

“For a while, a lot of us were thinking maybe it’s just reckless hyperbole, but it’s not. It’s reckless non-governing. The misogyny is every bit as bad as we thought it would be – the racism, the homophobia, the ugliness, the bullying that we saw on the campaign trail has not only not stopped, it’s escalated. It’s every bit as bad and, frankly, worse than we had feared.”

Her counterpart, Colorado Republican Party Chairman Jeff Hays, scoffed at the sentiments expressed by marchers.

“Will they be protesting the reduction in their taxes, or will they be protesting their larger retirement portfolios?” he asked Colorado Politics rhetorically in a statement. “Will they be protesting improved job and business opportunities for themselves and their families, or will they be protesting the remarkable number of women President Trump has appointed to national leadership positions?”

Andrea Rebel, who brought her mother from Colorado Springs and her daughter from school in Fort Collins to the march, said she hadn’t wanted to miss it – the Denver resident had been out of the country when the march took place last year – but was miffed she felt it was necessary.

“What’s most disturbing is I have to be here with three generations to actually fight against this,” she said, gesturing at the hordes of protesters walking past. “This should not be something in my mom’s generation, let alone in mine, and definitely not in my daughter’s.”

Denver Councilman Paul Lopez said he was impressed with the turnout at this year’s march as he walked alongside the Capitol with his daughter.

“It just goes to show people haven’t forgotten, the movement hasn’t fizzled – they’re getting stronger against this president.” He added, “It’s important for us as men to come and stand in solidarity with women. Every man should be out here too.”