About Us

---

Join the community and the CAC family for The Circle of Life All Ages Open Mic Night on Friday, June 2 from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm.  The venue for the fundraising event will be Tomas Cafe,  622 South A Street, Oxnard.   A donation of $5 will be collected at the door.  The family event brings back the very successful Open Mic sessions for this worthy purpose.  Bring your talent and your checkbook to this family fun time to help fund the scholarship established in Don's memory.  Singers, poets, musicians, rappers, comics, and many other artists will share their clean material and vendors will show their distinctive wares!

The Board of Directors of CAC resolved to establish the Don Montgomery Memorial Scholarship at a meeting on May 23, 2023.  The Memorial Scholarship honors the legacy of Donald (Don) Wayne Montgomery, a prominent community leader, basketball coach, and advocate for social justice. Mr. Montgomery played a pivotal role as a co-founder and President of the Community Advocacy Coalition of Ventura County (CAC), dedicating his life to the organization's development and actively serving as a Board member until his passing. To commemorate his extraordinary contributions, the Don Montgomery Memorial Scholarship has been established to recognize academic excellence and empower deserving Black or African American students who demonstrate a strong interest in leadership within social justice advocacy, politics, community service, and/or basketball.

These are certainly unprecedented times, with the country facing enormous challenges even as the state of our democracy precipitously declines under the onslaught of alt-right ideologies, continued propagation of the big lie, and an increasingly authoritarian-embracing Republican Party. 

In discussions about this threat, Community Advocacy Coalition supporters and advocacy committee members were moved to be a catalyst for community engagement here in Ventura County, especially among young people – Millennials, Gen Zers, and perhaps high school students as well. Young folks have a huge stake in the fight to make America’s democratic experiment work for everyone. We at CAC acknowledge that leadership cannot come from us in the older generations, but we do want to provide support in whatever ways we can. And that’s where YOU come in, as leaders directly or indirectly connected with young folks. 

This forum is to dialogue about the current involvement of young people in political life, and how aware/concerned they are about our eroding democracy and its impact on their lives and futures. What is emerging from the younger generations in terms of strengthening and re-shaping our democratic experiment? Clearly there is a great deal of action and advocacy around the climate crisis/environmental justice, racial justice, DACA/immigration issues, affordable housing, and reproductive rights. Are they connecting the dots in terms of success or failure in those efforts, and the poor health of our political system? 

The purpose of this convening is to better understand and map the landscape of young people’s political involvement locally, and to foster integration of progressive actions that shore up, repair, and even re-imagine our democracy. As you all know, the energy, vision and advocacy of younger generations are critical to making real, long-lasting change, and creating the future we aspire to. CAC wants to support them, and you, in those efforts.  The result will be a call to action to determine a way forward to address this topic locally and nationally, as appropriate.

Join us to explore these important questions, and brainstorm steps forward. And please share this invitation with young folks in leadership positions in our county (cc to CAC).   For more information please contact us at info@the-cac.org.