Notice critical billboards around Eastern Washington? A group of knitters and sewers are behind some

Their hair is mostly gray, but their hats are all red.

Inspired by a Norwegian World War II-era protest effort against the Nazis, a group of women from around Spokane have undertaken an artistic resistance movement against the Trump administration. About a dozen women aged 60 and older gather weekly to sew and knit red beanies, selling them and using the money to fund an effort that extends across Eastern Washington: billboards.

The group has created over 150 of the hats, they estimated, selling them largely at No Kings rallies, where they’ve raised $2,300.

“It’s our way to fight the negativity and the oppression, truly, that seems to come from our government,” said 80-year-old Eileen Martin, who gathered the women in January after the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration agents.

“It gives us a sense of peace that we’re doing something,” said Kay Allhiser, 79. “Not just suffering, but contributing and helping.”

The handmade hats are all unique – varying in hues of red and material used – but all have a signature tassel as a nod to their European protest origin. The women purchased the pattern from a yarn store in Minneapolis that spurred the knit hat renaissance as a subtle symbol against the Trump administration.

It’s also cathartic, the women said, to gather weekly and put their busy fingers to use. At the beginning of their meetings, they’re usually fired up by the day’s headlines. After a spell, laughter, conviviality and community replace feelings of helplessness.

“Just being able to get together with people who are positive, trying to think of ways to help, it’s just really inspiring,” said Mary Lu Vait, 68. “It keeps you going when you read all the negative stuff, and then you go be with people who are inspired and creative.”

The group of creatives joined forces with and raise funds for Prosperity Eastern Washington, an advocacy group seeking to educate those in rural areas east of the Cascades about how federal changes in health care and farm policy, for example, affect those communities .

The advocacy group began buying billboard space in the fall, said Pam Kohlmeier with Prosperity Eastern Washington. They cost around $750 a month, and the group intends to keep them up until November.

To date, 13 billboards are spread around Eastern Washington with such messages as “With costs rising, who’s representing us?” and “Neighbors are hurting, billionaires profit.” The ads appear from Walla Walla to Dayton to Rockford to Colville.

“We feel like we’re the only ones doing any kind of information out there,” said Shirley Grossman, with Prosperity Eastern Washington. “That’s a little sad, frankly, but we’re filling a need that is a big hole right now; it’s getting information out to the rural areas.”

A sign in Cheney at the intersection of 1st and Vine Streets asks passers-by to choose between paying for food or health care.

It’s meant to call attention to impending cuts to Medicare subsidies. Kohlmeier, a physician and a former Democratic candidate for the state House of Representatives, said these cuts will have a compounding effect on rural hospitals especially as people lose their government health insurance and can no longer afford care. Hospitals relying on their visits and reimbursement from government insurance will then suffer for lack of revenue, she said.

“That’s going to have a devastating impact on hospitals, because so many, especially in the rural hospitals, are already struggling,” Kohlmeier said. “As soon as more people lose care, people don’t stop getting sick, but the hospital still has to treat them and then not get paid, so these struggling hospitals are going to risk closure.”