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Welcome to the Pen & Scroll — committed to academic excellence, leadership, and community service since 1964.

Leadership Starts Here

Community Services

The Pen & Scroll organization proudly gives back to the community by volunteering at the Central Harlem Senior Citizens Center, located within the Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Community Center. Members not only work in the kitchen to help prepare meals but also serve lunch to seniors creating an atmosphere of care and fellowship. This initiative not only meets a vital need but also strengthens bonds across generations, showing respect and appreciation for seniors while instilling in young volunteers the values of leadership, compassion, and community responsibility that lie at the heart of Pen & Scroll’s mission of service and community upliftment in Harlem.

Aligned with Pen & Scroll’s mission to cultivate leadership, service, and community uplift, our work as certified NYC BOE mentors at MS 224 — Frederick Douglass Academy in the South Bronx puts that commitment into daily practice. We build consistent, trusting relationships with students; model character and civic responsibility; and deliver structured supports—from academic tutoring and goal-setting to social-emotional skill-building and college/career exposure—that help young people thrive. In partnership with educators and families, we translate our mission into measurable gains like stronger engagement, improved attendance, and a clearer sense of purpose, ensuring every scholar is seen, supported, and prepared to lead.

Guided by Pen & Scroll’s mission to cultivate leadership, service, and community uplift, our mentorship at Intercession Church (550 W 155th St, New York, NY 10032) turns those values into year-round action. For over 10 years we've assisted in the annual reading of “A Night Before Christmas” celebration—organizing as volunteers, distributing gifts, and welcoming families—while contributing to Intercession's Saturday Sports Programs build character, teamwork, and healthy habits through structured play and mentoring. We also support security and site stewardship so every gathering is safe, orderly, and inviting. Through consistent presence, goal-setting, and positive role-modeling, we help young people grow into responsible leaders who serve their neighbors—living our mission in the heart of the community.

Mission

The Pen & Scroll Organization established in 1964 is committed to build a better life for young men, and women by helping them achieve economic empowerment, academic advancement and cultural awareness, which will prepare them for leadership and service to the communities in which they live. We establish an active outlet for educational and social development, while encouraging leadership serving the needy and less privileged.

Purpose

Establish an active outlet for educational and social development while encouraging leadership serving the needy and less privileged.

History

During the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the Pen and Scroll Military Fraternity was founded in 1964 under the auspices of the New York City Mission Society Cadet Corps (NYCMSCC). The fraternity was designed for African American and Latino male senior officers of the cadet corps. The program functioned primarily as a supplementary training apparatus for the already successful officers’ corps of NYCMSCC. The new organization had the explicit purpose of guiding young people, building character, and strengthening an ethical value system aligned with cultural education and leadership development; it succeeded under the tutelage of its founding leaders.

Prior to the era of “benign neglect,” our so-called “disadvantaged youth,” trained to give service to the community, were impacted by devastating social dysfunction—substance abuse, alarming increases in school dropout rates, lack of quality education, teenage pregnancy, incarceration, related violence, and homelessness—thereby undermining the natural growth of African American and Latino males, and likewise of females.

Since the covert onslaught of “benign neglect,” youth continue to suffer the residual effects of that policy, whereby psychological, sociological, and spiritual deprivation hampers their development today.

Subsequently, in 1965, the creation of Pen and Scroll Sorority was the next logical step to serve African American and Latina young women within NYCMSCC who were also officers. Following the same course—constructing a viable program for young women—the sorority’s founding leaders understood the maladies our community’s female youth faced. Thus, they created a parallel organization with the same goals, objectives, methods, results, and evaluation modalities as the fraternity.

For four decades after their creation, the two entities—P.S.M.F. and P.S.S.—thrived for the betterment of all participants. Unfortunately, although NYCMSCC was an incredibly viable youth program, the organization later suffered a period of programmatic and organizational dormancy, succumbing to national policy shifts that failed to strengthen the social programs of the “Great Society.”

During our dormancy, a prevailing attitude held that “government paternalism” was no longer needed. Reinstating programs such as Head Start, HARYOU, Youth in Action, and College Discovery, it was argued, would create perpetual dependency on government—in other words, our youth would be placed in an everlasting “trick bag,” because, as a community, we supposedly could not sustain the sovereignty and growth of our most precious commodity: our youth. Thus, the two entities were the linchpin of our continued existence as an organization.

Circa 2001—after the PSMF and PSS dormancy period from 1980 through 2001—the Pen and Scroll Organization, Inc., was reborn under the stewardship of dedicated brothers and sisters who refused to allow the legacy of the “Scroll” to go quietly into the night.

After twenty-plus years of reconstructive rehabilitation, our beloved organization, devoid of governmental assistance, forged ahead as a self-sustaining corporation in its infancy.

Having learned from the “trick bag” created after the 1964 and 1965 foundings, the new organization embraced independence. Specifically, the best path forward was under our own steam—free from outside influences that imposed prerequisites we could not in good conscience accept.

Presently, we are at a crossroads, and our failure or success is our sole responsibility. One truth remains: “Progress never proceeds in a straight line.”

We stand at that crossroads, protecting the sovereignty of our youth at all costs. For those who want the best for themselves and for Pen and Scroll, we must each present our best efforts to secure a viable future.

Officers

Contact Us

Send us an email

Email: info@penandscrollfrat.com
Address: 550 West 155th Street, New York, NY 10032
Snail Mail: 365 West 125th Street PO Box 3099 NY NY, 10027
Phone: (347) 377-7794