PROVIDENCE — Just over a dozen protesters, beating a drum and shaking a maraca, marched to a state human services office on Broad Street Saturday to demand easier access to food stamps.

The protesters, from the George Wiley Center, said that it was one of five buildings around the state that advocates visited to press for keeping food-stamp offices open on Saturdays to accommodate the working poor.

When they banged on the door of the Providence Regional Family Center, two employees and a police officer greeted them. Beatrice Braisted, a supervisor for cash assistance, said she would accept any applications but would not let the group inside. She explained that state employees were there only to catch up with paperwork.

No one in the protest group had an application. They paused to sing “We Shall Overcome,” before dispersing.

Liz Marsis, a George Wiley staffer, said the protest was scheduled to coincide with the 41st anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. But the antipoverty and advocacy group has been agitating for months on the food stamp issue, saying that the 97,000 people who currently receive the assistance represent only about two-thirds of those who need it.

The advocates assert that the program — financed by the federal government and administered by the state — is understaffed and requires people to fill out a daunting 28-page application.

The state has hired additional workers, but they have yet to start processing applications, the protesters said. “They get more training than a NASA astronaut,” said Jack Colby, a Wiley Center volunteer. “Try calling and see how many days it takes to get a human being.”

Amy Kempe, spokeswoman for Governor Carcieri, said in a phone interview afterward that 10 new food-stamp workers were already on the job or would be soon. Kempe said that the state was “well within the federal requirement for processing applications,” and that any additional hiring had to be weighed against the state’s responsibility to close its $357-million deficit. Similarly, opening the offices on Saturday would incur overtime costs.

The state has created a shorter application for elderly people and will soon institute a phone application process that will eliminate the need to visit an office, Kempe said.

Additionally, she said, the state Department of Labor and Training has sent letters to 20,000 recently unemployed people to alert them that they might be eligible for food stamps, and continues to mail 1,000 such letters each month.

ffreyer@projo.com