By Robert Wilson
GREENWOOD – Wes Prather used to win high school basketball games, but now he has a much higher calling, winning souls for Christ.
Prather, a former Hillcrest Christian School point guard, coached boys basketball at Hillcrest, MRA, and Pillow Academy. He became the director of student life at Pillow Academy last year and this May took over as the executive director of the Ballas Family Community Kitchen in downtown Greenwood, in the Crystal Grill building, one of the most popular and oldest restaurants in the Mississippi Delta, which closed last year.
Prather and his staff feed less fortunate adults, kids and families from the Greenwood area with free lunches Monday through Friday and encourage them, tell them about Christ, pray with them, give out free Bibles and offer devotional sessions.
“I’ve always had a heart for this,” Prather said. “I did it in downtown Jackson back years ago. When the previous director retired in April, the board called me and knew my background. They wanted to know if I would be interested in taking over. We prayed about it and talked about it. I am still part time at Pillow, the FCA, the student life trips and the chapel. I am still involved with the Pillow kids and do this full time. That’s what God does. The Johnny Ballas family, who owned the Crystal Grill, donated this building to us earlier this year. Mr. Ballas retired and he wanted to use the building for good. So he gave it to the community kitchen. That’s a blessing.”
Prather is the first one to the community kitchen every week day.
“I get up here between 6 and 7 every day spend some time by myself, just hanging out,” Prather said. “My staff gets here about 730 or 8. We have two cooks (Mary Lemon and Diane Williams) and other staff members (Johnny Jennings, Mickey Rape, and George Williams). We are 100 percent donation based. We have a retail program with the Mississippi Food Network. We use Walmart for 90 percent of our food. We use Walmart for all our meats. A lot of our sides are donations or canned foods. We have staff meetings, Bible studies, and staff devotions. We do a lot of prep work. We also have different volunteers who come in every day. Sometimes they are from a church or a school basketball team. They serve on the line or pass out plates. They pray and pass out bibles. The Delta Health Alliance gives out kids books. We feed three day cares twice a week. We are starting a kids bible study. Whenever we get something from Walmart, we made a day care run.”
Prather’s ministry is growing. It started with about 50 who came to eat lunch and now there are about 200 every week day. They are closed on the weekends.
The news spread fast about Prather and his ministry.
“It’s 100 percent word of mouth,” Prather said. “We develop relationships with them. They tell their friends, ‘You need to come eat lunch with Wes or you need to come to the community kitchen.’ We love on them. We make every meal a Jesus meal. That’s our goal. It has been really cool to see.”
Prather was the starting point guard on Hillcrest’s 2003 MAIS Overall Tournament championship team. He got his coaching start by being the head coach on the fifth and sixth grade team at Hillcrest when he was a freshman at Hinds Community College. Prather also was an assistant with James Crain on Hillcrest’s junior high and high school teams while he was a student at Hinds CC and Mississippi College. He worked under Crain for six seasons and took over for Crain when he left for Simpson Academy. Prather led Hillcrest to three state championships and played in six state championship games. He was then was an assistant to MRA’s Richard Duease – the winningest basketball coach in Mississippi history and a member of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame – for one season and helped him win a state title and Overall championship. Then, Prather coached at Pillow for four years.
“Then (Pillow head of school) Barrett (Donahoe) asked me if I wanted to do student life,” Prather said. “We developed student life program at Pillow. Built from scratch. It was really, really cool. God opened up this door where I could do both. I love doing this. It is very fulfilling every day.”
Prather has received donations from hundreds of people across the state. Jason and Betty Hubbard and their son, Josh Hubbard – who plays basketball for Mississippi State and Mississippi’s all-time leading scorer when he played at MRA – came to Greenwood last week to give Prather $10,000 and a truckload of food. Jason Hubbard’s company, Aerus, presented Prather with a $5,000 check and the Josh Hubbard Showcase also gave Prather a $5,000 check.
“It’s really cool to watch how God has orchestrated relationships in my life,” Prather said. “I taught Josh bible class and coached him basketball in the seventh grade at MRA. The Hubbard family recognizes what we are doing and they want to be a part of it.”
Prather and wife Brittany of 19 years have four children, son Reed, 14, daughter Rory, 11, daughter Riley, 9, daughter Rivers, 4, all students at Pillow.
To find out more information about the Ballas Family Community Kitchen, visit their facebook page. To make donations, click on this link:
