Part two of the series People Who Make A Difference: The idea of this series is to find people that choose to make a difference where they are at. At the heart of this series lies the truth that everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from, can make a difference. Heroes are not always who we think they are. More often than not, heroes are simply average every day people who just believe the world does not have to be the way it is.

Malcolm M. Scarboro is currently a rising senior at Old Dominion University (ODU) who majors in International Studies and is known to be heavily involved at ODU. He also just happens to be the CEO and Founder of a community service oriented organization entitled: Open arms Community Upliftthat was officially founded one year ago in May 2015. The mission statement of the organization states that their mission is to, "develop leadership, promote safety, and aid the disadvantaged; while building stronger communities through inclusion." I sat down with Malcolm to talk about what his organization is about, what they do, and what we can expect to see from them in the future:

1. You mention on your website that you wish to,"end the generation apathy towards service to others." Did that play a role in why you decided to found this organization?

"Yeah definitely. One big issue, not just in this area, but internationally, is when you go out and try to find people that want to serve their communities, no one wants to help. People are not willing to because it has nothing to give back to them. So ending the generational apathy towards others basically means that we have to make service as fun as possible and hopefully in the process their heart strings are pulled. The ultimate goal is that they become fully invested in the community that they live in and not just in their immediate families. So, that played a big goal in starting Open Arms Community Uplift.

Unfortunately, I believe millennials suffer the most from apathy. Within our generation, we are heavily invested in Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, selfies, but cannot find any time to think about others. Back in the day, that's not what went down. I have a neighbor named Mrs.Laura who told me a story of the man that lived in my house before I did. Basically, he hit rock bottom and had no money left. Not only that, but his house was falling apart. The community saw this and decided to act. The entire community came through and left food for this man and helped him get back up on his feet! That is something that used to be common. And I think for our generation, every time something is done or given, it's like this big wow factor. It has to be broadcasted! Ya know, like "oh you gave him a dollar" or "wow that's great that you gave him a taco!" We just do it for the recognition. I don't see what I'm doing as so special. People sometimes say to me that, "oh you do a lot" or "your organization is doing a lot." But the thing is that everybody can do it. And I think one issue with our generation is that we lost sight of others in ourselves. In our selfishness, we forgot to be altruistic. And that's the most important word this generation needs to learn. I think that because we lost a sense of community, it made us lose ourselves. Because that is where our identity is found.

"And i think one issue with our generation is that we lost sight of others in ourselves. In our selfishness, we forgot to be altruistic."

In terms of when I got the idea to start this organization, I noticed that other community service organizations in Norfolk, like the Dwelling place, which housed homeless families, were shutting down. I, along with other colleagues, decided to try and raise funds last year to get the Dwelling Place to stay open because tons of families were going to be displaced. And it was really hard. We went out canvassing trying to get people to donate and they wouldn't donate because it had nothing to do with them. We ended up having insufficient funds. Yet, I walked away from this knowing that something had to be done to fill the void that was left."

"Yet, I walked away from this knowing that something had to be done to fill the void that was left."

2. What does your organization do to help the local community? Any cool initiatives that you would like to mention?

"Well as of recently, we had an initiative called May Day 31, where we aimed to feed 31 families in Hampton Roads through the food bank's share program. It is a big belief of mine that organizations should work in synergy with each other and not try and reinvent the wheel. We were able to feed twenty families of four (or 80 people). To raise the money, we went out canvassing for donations and trying to get volunteers. With all of this canvassing in the neighborhoods, the eventual goal is that we get a good body of donors that become reoccurring donors.

"... we lost a sense of community, it made us lose ourselves. Because that is where our identity is found."

Malcolm hard at work with his team working on their recent May Day 31 initiative.

As for current initiatives, as I said previously, I believe in working in synergy with other outside groups. With that being said, AeroTech, Concursive, Wetlands Watch, and GOV2COM are collaborating on a sea-level app challenge prize contest. The prize will be for the best app concept(s) to run on the Sea Level Rise (SLR) mobile app. SLR is currently being used by many universities and research organizations to track the effects of coastal flooding. The winning app concepts will be innovative, useful, and economically sustainable not only for Hampton Roads but to all SLR users around the world. The teams will only have to develop app concepts (not the app software), as well as a business opportunity description.

In collaboration with their efforts, we are accepting applications to join our groupthink efforts for this opportunity. We intend to submit a proposal for this contest. Not only will be fulfilling our goal of getting the community involved but the prize (which is 10,000 dollars), would go a long way to help our organization help more people. Also, given that we live in Norfolk, the issue really hits home for a lot of us.

For our next initiative, we hope to focus on crime. We are still looking into what this will look like but we are excited. In terms of involvement with ODU, we also participated in the ODU Unity Rally that was organized as a response to the recent Neo-Nazi fliers placed on ODU's campus."

3. What do you think is unique about your organization?

"One thing that is big with service organizations is that they do not always advertise the numerous opportunities available to the people that well. They do not bring it to the people. Typically you see organizations like the Focus center or the YMCA that will be set up in buildings and will work with families. That is amazing but again, they do not bring it to the people. So one thing that we do, we have a canvassing team that is dedicated to engaging the Norfolk community. I'm not sure if a lot of service organizations have one. That is how we inform people in what is going on, get ideas on initiatives, and how we get people excited to change their community. Recruitment through canvassing is really important to us as we move forward.

Another aspect that I believe to be unique about my organization is our vision that we have for getting people back in the workforce. And this goes hand in hand with college students like you and I. There are numerous universities in the Hampton Roads region such as Norfolk State, Old Dominion University, Virginia Wesleyan College, and Tidewater Community College. Many graduates of these universities still live in the Hampton Roads region and we'd like for these people to use their degrees to aid the community through our program. Eventually, as we continue to grow, we want to get individuals who can teach people in disadvantaged communities how to write proposals that can go to places like City Hall. They need to have a say and means to let their government know what need. We also want these college graduates to use their degrees to train others who cannot afford college in a trade. That way, instead of them paying tons of money to get a degree, they are getting the same training free of cost, plus they are using the connections that we have through our organization. In this way, we'll be teaching these people marketable skills to the job market in a way that will not bankrupt them."

Malcolm on ODU campus trying to sign up volunteers.

4. How receptive has the community been to your efforts?

"Very. One thing that we use to test how receptive the community will be is canvassing to try and get donations and also volunteers. The people really love when they do not have to come to you. It makes it easy for them. They really love that someone is doing something because everyone always has a complaint about the community but as much as they complain about it, they do not do anything about it. So if you bring the problem to their face, they have to do something about it. They have no choice!"

Just another day of canvassing for Malcolm and his friends.

5. Have you experienced any growth in your organization? Are their plans to expand in the future?

"The main plan is to get a building first. We would like to have a building in Norfolk, but the idea is to take it to every city, so we'd like for it to be federally funded which right now we are not. For instance, upward bound can always have a building sponsored by a municipality. So like a school could house them. We can't get housed yet till we grow some more. We are currently looking for anyone that is looking to come through with their skill sets to fill some leadership positions that are now available from people graduating. (volunteer link located below) If we could find some ambitious people that are in the community that are highly dedicated that would really help."

Malcolm speaking at the Epsilon Nu Lambda chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. as an honored guest.

6. Have you ever been discouraged?

"Every single day. From the jump, when you have people that are not really interested in helping others like you are, it can be hard. Because you find yourself sometimes doing a lot of work trying to get others to join you in your endeavors and no one has confidence in your vision or feels the need to help. They are not as passionate about it as you are. There is a quote that I saw awhile ago that has come to be a favorite of mine: "I don't know anyone who has every been broke by giving back." And that's the truth. I don't every think that giving back could ever fell. I had a few moments of doubt in the beginning stages but after awhile, you start to get the hang of it. People start helping you out. Your name is your brand and that is everything. Eventually, nobody asks questions anymore because they trust you."

"I don't know anyone who has every been broke by giving back."

7. How can those that want to take part in this organization help? What opportunities are there?

"We are always looking for people. Even though our May 31 initiative is done, we still have many things coming up! We currently have a link up on our social media page that is a sign-up sheet for people that are wanting to help us make the May 31st initiative a monthly thing. As I said earlier, there is also the Sea Level App concept challenge that we would like to take part in. Hopefully, people that would like to take part in our efforts to win the monetary prize will email us their ideas or show interest. We always post when we are looking for new people. Also, leadership positions are going to be completely open for the new semester soon."

"Your Name is your brand. And that is everything."

8. Any tips to young people that want to make a change in their local communities?

"Never be scared. When you are going out there you may feel like you are alone at first, but then you'll find somebody that agrees. Out of every no, you'll get one yes. You have to take every no as graciously as you took that yes. And from then on, as long as you know you are doing the right thing, don't ever care about what others are thinking about you. Just do your best at the end of the day."

"Out of every no you'll get one yes. You have to take every no as graciously as you took that yes."

If you wish to contact Malcolm, you can reach him through the following ways:

Phone: |(757) 685-1879

Email : OACU@OACU.org

Snapchat : OACU2015

Instagram: oacu_org

Facebook :Click HERE!

Website: Click HERE!

Want to donate to the Cause? Click HERE!

Interested and want to sign up to find out more information? Click HERE!