June 4, 2025
The fraternity emulates comparable customs as Divine 9 organizations.
Most sororities and fraternities deal with increase collegiate college students via a lifetime bond. Nevertheless, a brand new tackle these conventional organizations provides the identical fellowship just some years earlier.
The Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity solely permits highschool boys to grow to be members. Based mostly in Birmingham, Alabama, its values of brotherhood and unity assist hold these younger males away from extra harmful actions. Permitting them to search out upliftment and acceptance right here can assist lead them away from darker paths.
Jeremiah Corridor, a highschool senior, says the fraternity has allowed him to examine a greater future for himself. Now, he has new brothers eager to chase the identical ambitions.
“It teaches you how you can develop and how you can bond for actual…If it wasn’t for PKS, I believe I wouldn’t be right here proper now. I had a rocky begin via highschool life, transferring towards the streets, and having them round has helped me,” Corridor, a senior at A.H. Parker Excessive College, instructed AL.com.
PKS, based in 1995 as a solution to construct neighborhood amongst adolescent boys, has grown to greater than 1,000 members. Whereas partaking within the enjoyable customs of collegiate Black organizations, like stepping and strolling, they nonetheless conduct month-to-month neighborhood service and native HBCU excursions.
“It’s a corporation the place you come and also you search for brotherhood. We bond via the entire course of…We uplift one another. We go to follow, do neighborhood service…We simply attempt to make one another higher,” defined PKS member president, Michael Pollard.
Teenage members additionally supply this steering to these subsequent up, mentoring Phi Gents, a tinier model of the fraternity for elementary and center schoolers.
“It’s actually serving to construct up my character. To grow to be a greater individual and be a greater man,” added highschool junior Ryan Grey. “Typically younger individuals can go astray and get across the fallacious crowd, however PKS is making an attempt to assist change that narrative and assist younger individuals be round good, like-minded, younger adults.”
PKS instills self-discipline, energy, and willpower for its cohort, providing help whereas altering the notion on Birmingham’s “troubled” youth. Town tallied a file 151 homicides in 2024, 10 of them being kids. PKS additionally goals to fight this by permitting younger males a protected outlet to specific themselves and achieve the help they should thrive.
“It’s giving Birmingham a distinct look. We’re making an attempt to save lots of the town…We’re giving again to the town and never destroying it…These are the children which might be working exhausting. It’s a illustration, being an instance of what we actually ought to appear like,” defined Bryan Jenkins, PKS’ advisor. “We’re giving again to Birmingham.”
The group needs to amplify its mission towards the neighborhood via crowdfunding. It hopes donations will broaden its alternatives and providers, comparable to tutoring and scholarships, for the subsequent era of youth leaders.