A local fraternity wants to help elementary school students learn to love reading.

Leonard Spearman is a member of the fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. and a KEYS mentor for Katy ISD. Through the district’s KEYS program (Keep Encouraging Youth toward Success), Spearman is a volunteer mentor for three young men -- one at Mayde Creek Junior High and two at Rhoads Elementary.

But Spearman wanted to do more to help local students, especially those attending KISD’s Title I schools like Rhoads.

Through his fraternity – Kappa Alpha Psi® Inc., Spearman recruited almost a dozen volunteers from the local chapter to come to the Rhoads campus at 19711 Clay Road in Katy on December 4 to read aloud to second graders in the school’s library.

The men wore their distinctive red blazers identifying them as members of the fraternity. Spearman, as a member of the fraternity for more than 50 years, is entitled to wear a special white blazer. Pairing up and working with small groups of students, the fraternity brothers read aloud from books selected by Rhoads librarian Beth Stevens.

The initiative is a part of the fraternity’s national “Room to Read” program.

The “Room to Read” program had a soft launch in Milwaukee on November 15, 2019, and officially launched January 2, 2020, in Las Vegas during the Annual National Founders’ Day celebration with a national press conference, according to the fraternity’s website at kappaalphapsi1911.com/room-to-read. Since then, the fraternity has donated books provided by Room to Read to elementary schools throughout the country and announced it is donating more than 32,000 new books to students in second through fourth grade to schools located within Kappa Alpha Psi®’s 12 regions in the United States.

The local chapter of the fraternity also sponsors a pizza party for the Rhoads fifth-grade graduating class each year, in addition to a “Fable Festive” holiday writing contest in which students are encouraged to write about different kinds of holiday celebrations. Three contest winners will be selected this month and awarded prizes of $75.00 for first place, $50.00 for second place and $25.00 for third place.

Spearman told the Katy Times that more assistance and more mentoring is needed to help Katy ISD’s Title I schools. A spokesperson for the district confirmed that the district has 25 Title I schools.

To learn more about the KEYS mentoring program at KISD, go to katyisd.org/Page/10324.