Donna Brown-Wynn, naturally, enjoys coming home to visit family and friends each summer when she conducts her weeklong youth basketball camp in Vicksburg.

Amidst all the reunions and family time, however, one of the best parts of her week will be when she takes a break from basketball to talk about life.

“I absolutely love that time,” Brown-Wynn said. “I get to tell them to listen to their parents, to love yourself, be positive, and be true to who you are. A lot of kids don’t understand you have to do that.”

The brief pep talk in the middle of a week of basketball lessons is at the core of Brown-Wynn’s “Play 2 Wynn” basketball camp that begins Monday.

It’ll be the 13th year that the former Vicksburg High star, who went on to a 17-year coaching career at Mississippi State, Belmont University and Tennessee State, has conducted the camp.

While she has plenty to teach about the game of basketball, it’s the game of life that she’s more passionate about.

“My love for the game, teaching and coaching, and a love for impacting young lives is a life passion,” Brown-Wynn said. “It gets bigger than that for me. It’s about impacting lives. I talk about things other than basketball.”

Brown-Wynn graduated from Vicksburg High, where she was an All-State player, in 1989. She went on to start for four seasons at Mississippi State, then went into coaching.

She was an assistant at Mississippi State for two years and at Belmont for 13, seven of which were spent as the associate head coach. She then spent two years at Tennessee State before going into private business.

She now conducts several camps each summer in Tennessee and Mississippi, and is director of operations at a sports training facility called Coaching Character in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

“It’s a sports facility-slash-ministry,” she said. “We’re about to have our grand opening next month.”

Although she now lives in Tennessee, Brown-Wynn said Vicksburg will always be home. She’s kept her annual camp here going each summer in the hopes of spreading the faith as well as the basketball.

About 25 children attended last year’s camp, and she said response this year has been positive. Even if it wasn’t, she’d still hold the camp she started in 2003.

“I don’t care if there’s two kids in that gym,” she said. “My camp is going to continue in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I love coming back to that community.”

The 13th annual Play 2 Wynn basketball camp begins Monday at 9 a.m. at the Vicksburg High ROTC building on Lee Drive. The first two days of the camp will be there, then it will move to VHS’ gym Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

The cost of the camp is $75 per person and players of all skill levels are welcome. The camp is for boys and girls ages 6-17.

To register, call Brown-Wynn at 615-974-4015, email her at dbrownwynn@gmail.com — or just show up Monday morning, or even later.

“If they want to come Tuesday through Friday, they can do that and I’ll prorate the fee,” Brown-Wynn said.