Kiddipedia
Every now and then you hear a story that completely captures your heart and mind which elevates your thoughts and brings a fresh perspective on how beautiful the human spirit truly is.
Here we share a powerful story of community that we hope stays with you for many years to come.
How an online community of 15 like minded and supportive Mums bonded together to nurture a newborn baby each donating their breast milk for her first 12 months of life.
———————————
As a result of suffering with post-natal depression, Beckii Jones, Founder of The Organic Butler, created a natural parenting community online.
“It was quite a hard time in my life. I realised a lot of the time when you’re having children you need to have a village around you. I didn’t have that so, I created it!”
With an open heart Beckii started a Facebook community and within a really short time it grew to 800+ families from all over Melbourne. She nominated one mother as an admin to each area, which they called a “chapter” and would organise weekly meet ups to support one another. “The intention was to help fill the gap being able to help Mums who felt isolated.”
What came next for this community is nothing short of extraordinary.
“The Milk Tree”
“So, a big part of what we did was anytime a Mum was sick or they’d just had a baby a lot of us would go around to each others houses and go and pick up a meal that was made and use what we would call “The Travel Tree”. Supportively they would go and stock each mothers pantry, or their fridge, so to ensure they had enough healthy food to keep them all nourished.
Heartbreaking one day Beckii received news that a mother within their community had tragically passed away during her home birth. It was known she was planning to breastfeed and was very passionate about her baby having breastmilk.
Beckii was asked to send a message out to the community to see if any would be willing to donate breast milk for this baby, who now had no mother.
In total, 15 mothers in this community and the homebirth community agreed and soon after gathered in a hall with the babies father to strategize how they would schedule the milk runs. It was decided each mother would drop off her donated breast milk to the freezer out the front of the house and there was another few mothers who would pick up and again use the travel tree.
“We used to call it “Liquid Gold” because it’s directly from the heart, that we were sharing with this baby.”
As they met for their second meeting in the hall each mother was handed a photocopy of a hand written recipe that the babies mum had had on her fridge. It was of a ‘Lactation Cookie Recipe (as seen below)
Incredibly, even though the mother had passed away, she was still able to help by providing each of the mothers with a recipe to help them produce milk for her baby.
The 15 mothers continued to donate their breast milk for the entire first 12 months of the babies life honouring the mothers request.
Beckii opened the Facebook community group to simply create a village of like minded mothers and to get the support she so needed herself. The idea was simply to support one another and fill the gap providing help and support for Mums who felt isolated. Little did she know the impact of what she had created and how many lives it changed.
The power of human spirit and love transcends all boundaries. This story serves as powerful reminder that together we are stronger and to never doubt the capacity and possibility of what can be achieved when we come from a place of love.
—————————————————
You might also like to read:
Never underestimate the power of a woman
Planting A Seed Of Health In Your Child
