The North Atlantic Region

To my fellow Brothers, Community & Aspiring

members! I present to you a small publication assembled by the gentlemen of the North Atlantic Region. This region has expanded greatly since its inception in 2008. I have seen nothing less than hard work and dedication come from the gentlemen of this region, as they strive for nothing short of excellence. As I look back a year from this moment, this region was the home of one brother. Today, the North Atlantic Region stands strong with nine captivating gentlemen, who have pledged their lives to be community leaders, men of scholar & service, and uphold an unbreakable bond of brotherhood.

It has been such a wonderful experience, welcoming gentlemen semester after semester into this illustrious organization. I am so proud to announce the completion of the Spring 2010 Intake Class. I would like to publically congratulate these gentlemen on their accomplishment, and look forward to all their wonderful work in the time to come.

As you take the time, and read through the articles, interviews, and testimonies, it is my hope that you can take away a little bit from every member of the North Atlantic.

Elijah Dear North Atlantic Regional Director Kappa Psi Kappa Fraternity, Inc.

Regional Events

April 3rd, 2010

Bro. Travis Leotti’s Birthday

Celebrating Neophytes of

Spring 2010 Club Café

Boston, MA

April 8th, 2010

Kappa Sapphires Anniversary

April 10th, 2010

The Men’s Event Copley Marriott

Boston, Ma

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For more event updates please visit the Lambda Chapter Website!

www.kpsiklambda.webs.org

Kappa Psi Kappa Fraternity, Inc.

National Website:

www.kappapsikappainc.org

Regional Events

April 3rd

, 2010

Bro. Travis Leotti’s Birthday

Celebrating Neophytes of Spring 2010

Club Café Boston, MA

April 8

th, 2010

Kappa Sapphires

Anniversary

April 10th

, 2010

The Men’s Event Copley Marriott Boston, Ma

The North Atlantic Region

From The Desk Of… Brother Shakir Edwards Lambda Chapter President Greetings,

My name is Shakir Edwards, I crossed spring 2009. My line name is Enigma. I graduated from Oakwood University and received my bachelors of science in Biology.

As chapter president, I hope to be able to be a positive influence to the brothers of the Lambda Chapter, and to those on a national level. It is my hope to gain

more recognition within the community by participating in more community service initiatives. The Lambda Chapter has made a presence in the HIV/AIDS awareness and education circle in the Boston Community. I plan to extend a hand to other initiatives such as cancer awareness, March of Dimes, & youth aiding organizations through fundraising and community service

For the chapter, I challenge each brother to continue to be strong leaders, and empower our community. Through our excellence can we provide the space for community building & mobilization. For it is the help of many hands that lighten the load. Shakir Edwards Lambda Chapter President Kappa Psi Kappa Fraternity, Inc.

Boston SPYCE Brother Steven Fleury

Lambda Chapter Vice President

Boston SPYCE is a new social network dedicated to the empowerment and education of the LGBT communities of color. Boston SPYCE was founded on the following principles: Respect, Ethics, and Commitment. Those principles serve as core values to address and/or strengthen the economic, social, and educational aspects of the Black LGBT community in the greater Boston. While creating awareness around those critical issues, the organization seeks to establish a network of resources, educational tools, and empowerment models that can be used to positively affect the lives of those in our community. Boston SPYCE was conceptualized and founded in January 2009 by Steven Fleury and five other stakeholders in the community. Together we then form the Board of Directors of the organization. Originally, the board sought to re-establish Boston's noted Black Pride Festival. However, as we began to share our stories, we realized that we were unanimous in thinking that the Boston LGBTQ community needed change and renewed motivation. Inspired by the lives of the LGBT

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leaders who had came before us and captivated by their remarkable and pioneering stories, we decided to broaden our goals. Thanks to this new vision, Boston SPYCE came to be a dynamic organization devoted to changing the social lives of LGBTQ men and women across the Greater Boston area. Mr. Fleury and the members of the board of directors for Boston SPYCE are continuously working on the annual Renaissance Black LGBT Pride and related social projects in the greater Boston area. We are also committed to the diversity and inclusiveness of the queer community in various events and/or activities hosted by Boston SPYCE. Boston SPYCE hopes to bridge the inter-generational divides that sometimes exist in our communities by engaging the younger generation and the elder statesmen and women who established the Boston scene. We continue to ask for support from and collaboration while striving to stand positively for our community.

Lambda Chapter with Karen Payne – President of the Boston Branch of the

NAACP.

In a Glimpse… Greetings, I would like to introduce you to…

Brother Sigmond Lewis

Line Name: Notorious Crossing Season: fall 2009 Birthday: July 17, 1981 Hometown: Boston, MA Favorite Food: Island Food Dream Vacation Spot: Florida

If you could give advice to a future intake participant, what would that be? After going through the intake process, if I was to give a aspiring brother advice, it would be to learn the power behind not quitting and live by it; even after you are through with your process. Know that no matter what you have the power to complete what you put your mind to!

Your Favorite Memory as a brother? One of my favorite memories as a brother would be the time we took a trip to Connecticut for a night out; or so we thought. There was a

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blizzard out that night and we still decided to venture out for the evening. Because the weather was so bad we ended up getting a suite at the Marriott. This night allowed for us to truly bond as brothers, through in depth conversation, pillow fighting, and being away from home. I will never forget this night, for it was this moment that solidified my presence in the world of baby blue and gold.

Brother Travis Leotti Line Name: Kwiksand Crossing Season: Spring 2009 Birthday: April 3 1988 Hometown: Orlando Fl Favorite Food: Spanish food and soul food Dream Vacation: Puerto Rico

Your favorite memory as a Brother? My favorite memory as a brother was making breakfast with my brothers and going to shopping all together for founder’s day. Who do you idolize and why? I idolize two

people the first person would be Barack Obama because he made a change in

American history and I want to make a change in my community and in kid’s lives as a social worker. The second person I idolize is

my brother Elijah ‘Majestik’ Dear, he has always been there when people need

something he gives great advice and he has inspired me more to become a better man. He

also has really big goals and I would like to be half the man he is.

Guess Who? 1.) This brother loves to fly & travel 2.) This brother loves cartoons and animations 3.) This brother loves to put smiles on the faces of those he loves 4.) This brother loves rollercoasters, but dislikes heights. 5.)This brother’s favorite color is brown Answers: Bro. S. Fleury Bro. E. Dear Bro. S. Lewis Bro. T. Leotti Bro. S. Ewards

The brothers of the Lambda Chapter with our

sister Soror A. Briggs at the Chapter Halloween event.

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Four Guiding Principals Words from our Neophytes

Scholarship

I believe scholarship is about always striving to

learn and grow as a person. This can be through

academic means or through life experiences.

Scholarship is about improving yourself through

means that will help you to develop into

someone that you can be proud of. By attaining

a certain level of knowledge, you can be viewed

as a resource for others and can improve the

quality of life for others. --Pledge Beyonce

Scholarship is, at its core, the pursuit of

knowledge, and, hopefully, in service to a

greater cause. Many people believe

acquiring knowledge is a individual pursuit,

but many of the best thinkers credit the

challenge of thinking with others, as major

inspiration and supports for their most

innovative achievements. In the above

picture, we are discussing something but it

illustrates how we work and learn together.

All of our best moments, during the pledge

process, have been collaborative. We study

together and support each other we all do

better. As line brothers we have supported

each others to learn the knowledge of Kappa

Psi Kappa Fraternity Incorporated. We all

learn differently but that allows us each to

understanding and process information

differently. Those differences challenged me

to see things differently and increased my

awareness of things I don’t always consider. -- Pledge Michelle

Service

Service is an important aspect in life. For us,

we surround ourselves around volunteer

work for almost 2 years now. With my line

brothers, we have been part of a movement

that has done nothing but good for its

community. We do not get paid and to us,

money means nothing. When we give back

to our community it makes us feel good

about the work that we do. It helps us build

relationships with different organizations

and individuals. It gives us a chance to be a

unit and also have fun as you can see in this

photo. For our community service, we

volunteered to help clean up BYOP’s office

space where the youth do their social justice

work. The youth were impressed with their

space and were not sure if they were in the

right place. That was how different the space

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had looked. We truly learned a lot and had a

chance to make the youth of BYOP smile

and that put a smile on our faces. -- Pledge

Kelly

I believe that service is all about doing

something for others with no direct

compensation for the effort. Through service

we develop relationships with people that

are based off mutual respect and care. By

creating and maintaining these bonds people

start creating a community of people not

based on location, but on the reliability of

others and support from each other. --Pledge

Beyonce

Leadership

Lao Tzu once said, a leader is best when

people barely know he exists, when his work

is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we

did it ourselves. The purpose of the

assignment was to capture images of my line

brothers and me which captured us

illustrating the principle of Leadership. I

love the picture we chose because we are all

unique, and I believe seasoned leaders in the

field of HIV/AIDS prevention locally.

We’re at a New Era meeting, a place I have

continue to grow my leadership. And, I am

with two young men whose leadership I

have witnessed grow over time and whom I

truly respect. We have taken a panoramic

picture, so you could see that we were

among a community of leaders, who inspire

me, support me and guide me to the be the

best for the community. I am truly seeking

to be the leader Tzu talks about, rather than

one who needs recognition and spot. --

Pledge Michelle

Leadership is standing by your community

and taking the initiative to empower rather

than control individuals. In this picture you

see leaders of the community, who are

activist and love doing what they do. Each

and every one of us is unique and holds

good standards in our community. As

leaders, we grow to support and bring an

end to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Black

community. In the picture you can see, we

are leading a meeting on upcoming events in

our community. As leaders we want to

motivate our people and encourage them to

stand up and talk about HIV, talk about

getting tested and know their status. As

leaders we do not want to control anyone,

but to support and uplift our community and

show them that we care. We are youth

leaders and adult leaders who would like to

bring unity to our peers and communities.

-- Pledge Kelly

Bro. S. Lewis & S. Fleury serving the

community.

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Brotherhood

Brotherhood is trust; in my line brothers.

Brotherhood will forever remind me of #32

bus rides. Brotherhood is wanting to quit

because I’m fed up, struggling and tired. It’s

being at the next session because I promised,

#1 and #2, we would always truly be

brothers. It’s wanting to sleep in, but getting

up anyways. Brotherhood knows exactly

who you want to tell about the high point of

your day. It is committing to struggling

through one’s personal stuff, frustrations,

disappointment and lack of understanding;

in order to understand the depth of brotherly

love and capacity to authentically love my

brothers. -- Pledge Michelle

Brotherhood is the bond between me and my

line brothers. Though the times were rough,

somehow we managed to stick by one

another. There were times we argued and

complained that we could not make it

through the process and wanted to quit.

There was that moment where I just could

not handle the pressure and actually gave up

on myself. It was hard, but I did not have to

deal with the pressure alone. My line

brothers were there to help build me up and

to keeping me from falling. During the hard

times, we listened to each other complain on

how tired we were and how much stress we

were going through, but we did not give up

on each other. Instead, we helped each other

out of the quick sand and promised to help

each other make it through. As we held each

other’s hand, we walked out of the darkness

and into the light; not leaving not one of the

brothers behind. Brothers stick together, win

together, lose together and die together. --

Pledge Kelly

I believe brotherhood is something that

bonds people together. That bond is created

through struggling through similar problems

and supporting each other through those

different issues. Brotherhood doesn’t mean

you’ll get along with these people the entire

time, but you know that these people are

going to be there for you and accept you for

who you are in your entirety. -- Pledge

Beyonce

Bro. S. Edwards & E. Dear with Tasha Parker, member of New Era, Inc. & the Test 1 Million

Campaign.

The North Atlantic Region

Introducing

Many are called, but only few are chosen…

Introducing the brothers of Spring 2010

The Luxuriant Lambda Chapter

K-Psi-Intelligence

Bro. Dishon Laing #1 ImpeKable

Bro. Yovannys Kenney

#2 ImpaKt

Bro. Tyrome Thomas #3 Inalterable

Brotherly Love – Feburay 14th, 2010

Congratulations & Welcome!

To the Gentlemen of Spring 2010.