Kelly Prater: September Partner of the Month
by Judy Mandel
Kelly Prater, RN, Founder of Planting Hope in Somerset, Kentucky, and an active Partner with the National Trail of Truth, may be the most humble hero I’ve ever encountered.
She first explained that when her brother Steven Richardson passed away from a fentanyl overdose in 2020, she just wanted to do something constructive with her grief.
“It was such a devastating time, right in the middle of Covid,” she said, “my brother’s wife and I wanted to find a purpose for his story. I found Truth Pharm online and submitted his name for Trail of Truth.”
She wasn’t able to be at the event in Washington, D.C. that first year, so she remembers scouring the photos of the tombstones looking for her brother’s. Now she makes sure to take pictures of the tombstones for her local community. She holds local tombstone painting projects that are shown both in local events and at the annual National Trail of Truth.
Kelly’s advocacy began as a volunteer working for a local street ministry.
“I was their NARCAN person,” she said, “and we fed people and offered meals in town and went to encampments in the woods where we knew people lived.”
When that ministry closed, Kelly searched for another path for her grief and knowledge. Going to that year’s National Trail of Truth in D.C. opened that corridor for her.
“Seeing all the tombstones was a humbling experience,” she said, “and then meeting with so many others who were doing things in their local communities. I came away thinking, I can do that too and went home and pulled together my Board for Planting Hope in a month.”
Kelly and two other nurses she works with in the ICU at Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital form the Board for the organization. Those Board members are Laura Combs and Samantha Stringer. One of their missions is to train other health care professionals in stigma reduction.
“We saw that people with substance use disorder are often treated differently, and it feeds their mistrust of the nurses and doctors,” Kelly explained. “So we do training in patient-first language.”
An example she gave of changing that language is when a doctor asked a patient the last time they used a drug and got no answer, and Kelly stepped in to ask it differently—”How long have you been sober?” That started a dialogue, instead of a stonewall.
“I try to let people know I don’t care what they are doing, I just want to help them no matter what,” Kelly explained. “Really the core of what we do in our work at the hospital and the work with Planting Hope is showing compassion and respect for people and their autonomy, and that is the most important part of reducing stigma.”
Planting Hope is a community harm reduction organization that provides test strips, NARCAN kits and training, safe sex kits, period packs and other supplies. They also do stigma reduction training for nursing students.
The stated mission of the organization, on their website is:
“Our mission is to provide stigma-free care and support to individuals affected by substance use, guided by our faith-based love and compassion. We aim to promote harm reduction strategies that prioritize the health, safety, and dignity of those we serve. Through education, advocacy, and community engagement, we strive to plant seeds of hope and empower individuals to overcome barriers in their care, regardless of their pathway of recovery.”
You can find more information about Planting Hope at www.plantinghope606.com
The organization also has a Facebook page.
Being part of the National Trail of Truth has been empowering for her work in her local community. “My organization is very small, so I do turn to Alexis at the larger organization for help and guidance with some of our programs.”
The National Trail of Truth and Truth Pharm congratulate Kelly Prater on her deep and meaningful work in her community and as a valuable Partner.
