Books and Basketball Build Futures with Delta

By Alisha Proffitt Photos By Kathryn Harrington 

When you meet Wes Hinton, you can tell he’s someone who’s seen too much potential go to waste to idly stand by. His words come fast, like he’s always coaching. “I had a passion for sports. I had a passion for youth,” he says. “So as soon as I got to college at UofL, I started off as a volunteer assistant at DeSales High School and assistant basketball coach. And within two years, I got offered a position to come back to my alma mater, Fern Creek.” 

He quickly noticed a pattern. Brilliant athletes who couldn’t move forward because their grades or test scores held them back. At the same time, while teaching at the now-closed Myers Middle School, he saw another tragedy unfolding. Students who were bright and full of promise in sixth grade were getting lost by high school. They found themselves caught up in violence, incarcerated, or simply disappearing from classrooms. “I had a lot of talented kids that struggled in the classroom, that struggled to stay out of trouble,” Hinton recalls. “They had the opportunity to play college basketball but they could not because of their academics and their ACT scores.” 

“It was a wild place,” he says, “but we had a lot of young, motivated mentors in that building that were willing to save these kids.” 

At Myers, Hinton saw what happened when the world stopped paying attention. “We would have these kids that in sixth grade are fighting, they’re stealing, and we would kind of take them under our wing. They’d turn this thing around. Then two years later, I would hear these stories that the same kid is involved in a shooting. That same kid’s incarcerated. A lot of times, that same kid was no longer with us.” 

He pauses. “What happened in two years?” 

The question led him to an answer that became his mission. “I really needed to start something to catch these kids early,” Hinton says. “Because I’m literally witnessing how a kid that absolutely hates school, hates reading - how you can utilize sports as that tool to improve them academically, improve behavior, improve attendance.” 

One night, a lightbulb went off. “I’d had a couple drinks and I’m sitting there talking to my wife and I’m like, Delta - it just came to me,” he says. “Developing Educated Leaders Through Athletics.” 

That was the beginning. Before Delta had a building, it had a purpose. “I would call the schools and say, don’t give me your best player,” Hinton remembers. “Give me the kid that, without sports, isn’t going to graduate, and the kid that, if they don’t graduate, is going to run the risk of being dead or in jail. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to put this support system around them that’s going to make it hard on them to fail.”

The system was simple but relentless. Grade checks, one-on-one mentors, teacher communication, summer jobs. “No one touches the court till they touch the classroom,” Hinton says. 

Delta’s first big break came when a man named Ron Turnier saw a news story about the program. “He said, ‘What you’re doing is great... but it’s not going to take off till you get brick and mortar around you,’” Hinton recalls. Turnier, a successful businessman, didn’t just offer advice; he offered to fund a year of operations. “He said, ‘I’ll pay your salary, I’ll pay the rent, I’ll pay one other person’s salary, and I’ll fix the HVAC.’ Basically, I’m going to cover a year’s expenses.” 

They found a vacant former school in Portland, with waterlogged floors, rats, and all. “It did have three classrooms, a cafeteria, and a gym. So we’re going to make this work,” Hinton says. 

Delta’s first camp, in the summer of 2019, was as humble as they come. “We were able to serve 60 kids. We had no heat and air,” Hinton laughs. “We got pictures of kids with metal folding chairs, no shirt on, sweating, and just doing phonics on the table. But we really set the tone - we’re dead serious. You’re not touching this basketball until you give us reading and literacy time.” 

That camp grew into the after-school program Hoops and Homework. Everything was growing and going according to plan. Then COVID hit. 

Hinton remembers the silence after the shutdown, and how it didn’t last. “I’m lying in bed depressed for a whole month,” he says. Then he heard the governor announce that small groups of kids could meet for youth programs. “I immediately got on my phone,” he says. “I’m like, that means 40 kids. So here’s what we’re going to do: we’re going to do school at Delta.” 

While most nonprofits went virtual, Delta stayed open, masked, distanced, and determined. “We were the only ones that were going to start doing hands-on programming during the height of the pandemic as safe as possible,” Hinton says. “We fed them breakfast, lunch, we had school at Delta.” 

That risk changed everything. “All those doors that shut now opened,” he says. “In the year after COVID, we raised $260,000.” 

By late 2024, Delta was thriving, but their rented building was being sold. “At this point, we are serving 200 families a year,” Hinton says. “Our families get everything from us. Not only do they get 100% free after-school program, summer camps, they get turkeys at Thanksgiving, hams at Christmas.” 

When a developer told him the building was for sale, Hinton hesitated. “I’d never even thought about being a property owner,” he says. “But I said, ‘I’ll try.’” 

After months of fundraising, a key donation came from the J. Graham Brown Foundation, and another from basketball legend Junior Bridgeman. “He said, ‘How much do you need?’ And I was like, I need about $250,000 more. And he said, ‘I got you.’” 

In December 2024, Delta purchased its building, securing what Hinton calls “our forever home.” 

Now, Delta hosts twelve other nonprofits alongside its own programs: trades training, culinary arts, mentoring, and a food and clothing bank that serves over 200 people a week. “We wanted this to be a campus for opportunity in the heart of West Louisville,” Hinton says. “And that’s what it’s become.” 

In a city with fewer than 15 major foundations (compared to hundreds in cities like Nashville and Indianapolis) organizations like Delta survive on hard work and relationships. “In order to be a successful nonprofit, you have to have relationships with those people,” Hinton says. “Those are literally the people that are keeping this going right now while federal funding is not an option.” 

Delta is a perfect example of how belief, when matched with structure and a little help from others, can outlast the odds. “We almost lost this place,” Hinton says quietly. “And now we got our forever home.” 

To learn more and support Delta and its mission visit: deltafoundation502.com