After an afternoon of standing in the rain, protesters lined up outside Springfield's Historic City Hall on Tuesday afternoon to advocate for protecting their freedoms, the environment, futures of the nation's children, Social Security, workers rights and human rights, said Suzanne Hume, co-founder of Stop Project 2025 USA and founder and director of Clean Earth 4 Kids. Hume is a Springfield native.

Project 2025 is a 900-page proposal for President Donald Trump's second term that was put together by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Trump has said he is not involved with it, though his administration's policies and ideas echo some listed in Project 2025.

"For me, as a former teacher, I'm very concerned about the cuts (to) public education, Title I, Head Start, early childhood education, all of that, and Medicaid," Hume said. "... We started Stop Project 2025 USA. We wanted to build awareness of what's going on and how this (administration's actions are) going to hurt our kids, families and seniors, our clean air and clean water, our wildlife and public lands."

Bryce Lockwood, who served in the Marine Corps from 1959 to 1972, was among those who came out to protest.

"Our freedom is so important and here we are now: We have a man in charge in the White House in Washington who has turned his back on our allies, shaming North Atlantic Treaty Organization — which has kept us and Europe free for these 80-odd years," Lockwood said. "It's about time we spoke up for our freedoms and for the freedoms of the Ukrainian people and for the freedoms of the Europeans."