They’ve occupied Owen Park, Menemsha, Five Corners and the West Tisbury town hall. And tomorrow Occupy Wall Street organizers on the Vineyard are planning an early-morning demonstration at the blinker intersection in Oak Bluffs. The gathering is planned from 7 to 9 a.m. on Veterans Day.

“Bring a sign. Bring your energy. Bring your voice . . . a demonstration of solidarity and support. All are welcome to join us,” wrote BZ Riger in a post on the Gazette Facebook page this week.

The local Occupy movement emerged last month, initially with two groups. One is a Facebook group calling itself Occupy Martha’s Vineyard, and the other is a loose coalition of Islanders calling themselves Occupy Wall Street MV (OWS MV). Soon it expanded to include OccupyingBoston Adopt a Protestor and Occupy Five Corners. Then last week, Occupy West Tisbury emerged, sparked by The Broadside, a West Tisbury weekly published by Robert and Marjory Potts. “OB did it!  VH did it! Chilmark did it! And where is WT???” the weekly wondered.

In response, about 40 people, and several dogs, gathered at the West Tisbury town hall last Saturday morning and posed for photos while holding protest signs and singing We Shall Overcome.

In the spirit of the leaderless Occupy Wall Street movement, each Island Occupy group is demonstrating in its own way, although the event tomorrow morning is billed as an attempt at consolidation.

“Everyone is welcome who is in the Occupy Together spirit, we are all leaders and create this together,” states the event posting on the newly created Occupy Together Martha’s Vineyard Web site.

And while the modes of protest differ, the mission of each group is decidedly the same: to demonstrate in support of the Occupy movements taking place worldwide, to take a stand against corporate greed and to add their voices to the 99 per cent. “No one tells you what to do,” said OWS MV organizer Sam Low. “You just do what you think is important.”

On a recent Sunday, OWS MV invited demonstrators to meet in Menemsha and Owen Park to continue what had started on the second bridge in Oak Bluffs two weeks earlier. In bitterly cold winds from the weekend’s northeaster, about 25 people gathered on the beach in Menemsha. Some then traveled to Owen Park in Vineyard Haven where about 50 protestors and several dogs posed for pictures with protest signs. “Word is getting around, and more and more people are becoming aware that there are like-minded individuals here on the Island that they can connect with around these issues,” said OWS MV member Michael West.  

Solidarity was a word used repeatedly. “The point of today is to join our voices and add them to the other cities and small towns,” said Debbie Hart of Vineyard Haven. West Tisbury resident Carol Gannon Salguero said: “The relationship of the Island to the Occupy Wall Street movement is that we are all American citizens. We are all part of an electoral system . . . and the Vineyard is as interested, or should be as interested, as anyone on the mainland in America.”  

After the group photo was taken, Slammer, a protestor from Vineyard Haven commented: “It’s a really important movement . . . we’re really getting the message out and it’s really important to do this.”

Three demonstrators of a different sort stood protesting at Five Corners. “We come down here every Sunday at noon,” said Brandy Taylor, who stood at the busy intersection with her fiancé, Richard Jacobs, and her mother, Windy Taylor, holding a sign that read, “Occupy Wall Street: Solutions not Confrontation!” In her pocket were several flyers about the documentary film Inside Job, which inspired the family to start demonstrating.

In her more than 30 years on the Island, Ms. Taylor said she has witnessed many changes in the Island economy. Two of her main concerns center on the lack of affordable housing and stable employment. She said she is grateful to have a year-round job; she knows people who have not been so lucky and have had to leave the Island. “This should be a global movement because we’re all suffering the same problems: environmental injustice, social injustice, economic injustice,” she said.

“We have much to do,” added Windy Taylor.

Meanwhile, posts on the Occupy Martha’s Vineyard Facebook page are piling up.

“I am frustrated over the affordable housing issues. I don’t think it’s right you have families shuffling residencies every May, and September,” wrote Joe in a post. “You have people with great jobs, and they have to share a room, or sleep on a couch in a small house . . . literally all the seasonal rentals get taken, and you’re left with overpaying for a place to live . . . if you’re that lucky. I’ve had to live at my boss’s house a significant time the past two years.”

While the local Occupy groups have yet to join forces, they support each other, cross-posting on Facebook pages, sharing information and photographs.

“I think our movement here on the Vineyard will eventually coalesce, naturally . . . we are excited that there are that many [groups] and we feel that we should just keep doing what we are doing, and if people want to join us, fine,” said Brandy Taylor. “We are here to stay.”

The Taylors are pleased with the response they have received from passersby. “Today in a span of a half hour I counted as much as 28 cars waving and honking their horns.  There’s a lot of feedback here in this corner,” Windy Taylor said. Brandy Taylor agreed. “It’s amazing — it makes us want to come back out here and stay longer every time,” she said.

“It’s all about awareness,” said her fiance, Mr. Jacobs. “We are all the 99 per cent.”