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One of the main goals of the campaign, along with getting folk involved with the volunteer “movement,” is to help young people adopt a sense of shared responsibility that will encourage them to make volunteerism a life-long endeavor.
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 The “Pick-A-Fight” Tour!
The tour kicked off in Baltimore, MD at Morgan State University on October 17 and continued on to Howard University and Plainfield, NJ. OneDiaspora Group President Chris Cathcart is spreading the message of giving back across the nation. Upcoming stops include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit and Atlanta.
Please contact us TODAY and make your school, organization, event, conference or youth program a part this groundbreaking tour.
For information on booking Chris or learning more about the tour, please email us at speaks@OneDG.com.
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New Horizons College Club, Inc. - Cathcart is seated in the center
Photo by: Joel I. Plummer
OneDiaspora President Chris Cathcart Took The "Pick-a-Fight/Giving Back" Tour
to His Plainfield, NJ, Roots
The old adage "you can't go home again" may be true in most cases, but it rings hollow when it comes to giving back to the community that helped shape and nurture you. Recently, I had the honor and privilege of speaking to Plainfield, NJ's own New Horizon College Club, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening the African American
community by encouraging the pursuit of higher education. I was a proud member of New Horizon (called Outreach at that time) while attending high school in my native Plainfield (AKA the birthplace of Parliament/Funkadelic, if you didn't know).
This visit reminded me how important it is to reach out and give back, whether it's your home or someone else's. President-Elect Obama's message of giving has struck a chord in all of us, and we MUST maintain this wonderful energy into the new year. Indeed, we are all self-appointed "Secretaries of Volunteering," and the only confirmation we need is from ourselves.
If you want to bring the "Pick-a-Fight/Giving Back" Tour to your organization, school or business (adults need the message, too), please contact us today. But more importantly, pick your own fight, give back in your own way and mark this holiday season, and the dawn of a new era in Washington, by pledging to do what you can, with what you have, wherever you are to make a difference.
Pick- A-Fight Tour Testimonial
"Hearing Mr. Cathcart help me to realize the need to take advantage of every opportunity. I am so glad I showed up for New Horizons that night." Amanda C., 2008
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 Excerpt from Chris Cathcart's book
Mrs. Elaine Saunders believes church is more than just a place to spend Sundays
Let me say from the get-go–I am the least qualified to tell you how to worship. The key thing I want to say about church is that, as an institution, it is and has been the community’s most consistent base for social activism. It provides the best-organized and most natural setting for exercising the “Lost Art.” Often, by just becoming more active in your church’s existing programs, you can really help make a difference. So, again, take inventory of what’s already going on first before starting a new project.
In this vein, consider the remarkable life of a woman I had the pleasure of meeting while working on “The Lost Art.” Mrs. Elaine Saunders is nothing short of true gift to the world. This amazing life-long Washington, D.C. native has been active in community service for nearly all of her 71 years on this earth, and she has been a volunteer leader in the same church–D.C.’s Zion Baptist–since she was 12 years old.
The highlights of this woman’s amazing life are far too numerous to list here, however, by way of a very brief resume, her stats read something like this: attended segregated public schools through her early years, married her high school sweetheart (and is still married to him today), earned a bachelor of science degree from Howard University, mothered six children (with seven grandchildren), and has inspired more folk than one would think humanly possible. While summing her life up in those few sentences is akin to re-telling “War and Peace” in a couple of paragraphs, I hope you clued into the broad picture.
Being active through her church came naturally to “Momma ‘Laine,” as she is know by her ever-growing extended family. She started attending Zion Baptist when she was two years old, and was baptized and made an official member at 12. She’s been active ever since.
“I started out volunteering when I didn’t know that volunteering was what I was doing,” she said matter-of-factly. “At church, we were all expected to do certain things, kids included; that’s just how it was.”
At Zion, she has volunteered in every conceivable capacity, short of pastor. Elaine taught Sunday school at 15, served as teen center director, headed vacation Bible school, ran a breakfast program, and drove the church van, among many other duties. And, at 71, “Mama ‘Laine” currently serves as president of the Women’s  Ministry program, through which she gets the church involved with such things as outreach to teen girls, women in prison, adult bible study, and HIV/AIDS and other health-related issue workshops.
Mrs. Saunders considers getting others active as important as any of the work she does herself. “To know me is to volunteer for something,” she said with a laugh. “Church provides a good base. Start with people that you know, and make it fun. There’s enough out there to get folk to do something.”
Beyond her work with Zion Baptist, Ms. Saunders has also logged a lifetime of service with another institutional giant–the Girl Scouts, a group she has been actively involved with for 60 years. As fate would have it, this pillar of community service was encouraged, in part, to be a career Girl Scout by none other than Mary McLeod Bethune, the legendary educator and civil rights advocate. A friend of Elaine’s mother who was an acquaintance of Ms. Bethune, introduced the young Elaine to the nationally-renown leader, who suggested that she and her schoolmates form some kind of organization to help each other in their development. This idea led to Mrs. Saunders and her young girlfriends starting a Girl Scout troop.
“Ms. Bethune even arranged for our troop to visit First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House,” she said, still beaming with pride after all these years. “We had tea with her, with our bows in our heads and our little white gloves on; you wore gloves to everything back then.” Elaine still remembers the spectacle of all those little Black girls walking into the White House. The Girl Scouts were segregated then, as was most of the country.
Sixty years later, she is still involved with the Scouts, having volunteered in nearly every way possible on both the local and national levels for the group. She has the honor of being a Master Trainer for the organization. In truth, it’s only fitting that she’s a “scout,” because she has been successfully exploring ways to give back her entire life.
“We all need somebody to turn to when we need them,” she offered. “Volunteering is really a way for you to reach out and help people, make a difference in other people’s lives. I look at it like this: when I go, I just want ‘Him’ to say, ‘Well Done.’”
Momma ‘Laine, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. We just pray you don’t “go” anywhere anytime soon.
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