FDR Park campers defy city, get drenched, remain passionate against Clinton

They drove from Cleveland, Long Island, Chicago, and Minneapolis. They stuffed tents and tarps, fruit and guitars, and Bernie Sanders gear - tons of that - into trunks and suitcases and headed toward Philadelphia.

Over the weekend, the group of about 20 protesters built a small camp on the edge of Franklin Delano Roosevelt park, just blocks from the Wells Fargo Center, and waited for Monday's festivities to begin.

But on Sunday night, the storms came. And then, the police. Officers told them they couldn't sleep there.

But many had driven hours, raised money, and hitched rides to get here. Nothing, they said, could drive them away.

By early Monday morning, the campers awakened after a victorious night of defying the city - and Mother Nature. And though they had barely slept, some had barely eaten, and none had showered, they were ready, they said, for a day of marches and camaraderie.

The camp, positioned just off of Pattison Avenue and dubbed "Bern-Stock" by its residents, was just one of four or five camp sites that popped up throughout FDR park throughout last week and during the late hours of Sunday night. Most, they said, were camps full of Bernie Sanders supporters. Others, against fracking or political corruption in general.

But most of all on Monday morning one thing was clear among campers: Hillary Clinton, they said, could not be president.

And they were fired up on Monday Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced her resignation as DNC chairwoman after an leaked emails suggested the DNC may have played favorites in supporting Clinton.

"The better of the two evils is not a good option," said Josie Fiel, 30, of St. Paul, Minn. "Never Hillary - she's a crook."

About 100 yards away from the pro-Sanders camp on the outskirts of the park, Samantha Peden, 25, had set up camp under a gazebo with her husband, Josh Mowbray. The pair said they had walked across the country from Colorado, starting in early May and arriving in Philadelphia last week.

As camps have popped up across the park in the last few days, Peden says she's felt like it's been "a big family reunion."

"A lot of us feel like we have this kinship because of Bernie," Peden said. Getting across the country, she said, she and her husband often hitchhiked with Sanders supporters. And in FDR park, most have welcome her and her husband without any questions.

Peden said that, come November, she'll be writing in Sanders. Mary Shumay a 55-year-old Cleveland resident who raised nearly $400 on the website GoFundMe to get to Philadelphia, said she would be writing in Sanders, too.

"The DNC rigged this election," said Shumay, who, on Monday morning in the park sported a Sanders hat and a button that read, 'The Storm is Coming.'

"But with Bernie," she said, "we can take it back."