17 Oct Milk Bank cookie fundraiser benefits area’s tiniest and most vulnerable
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – It’s a Pittsburgh cookie table for a cause.
The third annual Milk Bank & Cookies event, which raises money for the Mid-Atlantic Mothers’ Milk Bank, has enlisted 20 local sweets makers to share their confections with event attendees at Stage AE on Nov. 6. The competitive baking event will be hosted by WQED television producer Rick Sebak.
“First of all, milk and cookies go together,” said certified lactation consultant and Milk Bank executive director Denise O’Connor. “What’s more iconic than a Pittsburgh cookie table?”
The nonprofit provides vulnerable, usually hospitalized babies with pasteurized, donated human milk, which vastly improves their health outcomes compared to formula feeding.
“We’re kind of like a blood bank, but we’re for human milk,” O’Connor explained.
Participating businesses include: Baked True North, Bittersweet Cookie Table Setup and Design, Cami Custom Sugar Cookies, Cinnaholic East Liberty, Cookie Cookie Ice Cream, Crown Julz Confections, DiAnoia’s Eatery, Dottie’s Bakery, Eleven Contemporary Kitchen, Gaby et Jules, Lil Bean Backerei, Lori’s Gourmet Cookies, Micah Made Cookies, The Munching Moose, My Favorite Sweet Shoppe, PGH Cake Co., Pittsburgh Cookie Table Divas and Unconventional Kitchen.
They will compete for the title of Best Cookie, Best Cookie Table Presentation and People’s Choice, with attendees and a panel of local judges voting for their faves. As is the case with a Pittsburgh wedding, attendees will receive a box to fill with cookies to take home.
Protecting babies
The Mid-Atlantic Mothers’ Milk Bank opened its doors in 2016 and grew quickly.
“It’s like drinking from a fire hose — that type of growth since we opened,” O’Connor said.
Before its creation, the region was behind when it came to utilizing donor milk for premature and extremely ill babies, she said, though it was the standard of care elsewhere. O’Connor said now all area hospitals use donated human milk and are seeing notable health results.
The organization collects milk from screened volunteer donors who are producing more than their own babies need. The milk is tested, bottled and pasteurized, a process that is overseen by the accrediting body the Human Milk Banking Association of North America.
When the milk bank began in 2016, it produced 57,000 ounces. Last year, it produced 431,000, a more than sevenfold increase. It distributes to 80 hospitals, and is the primary provider of donor milk in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It also provides milk to areas in New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware.
Ten percent of babies are born prematurely, so their digestive systems are not fully developed. The bioactive compounds that support growth and immunity found in human milk — and not in formula — are critical for this sensitive population.
Premature babies are at risk of a life-threatening intestinal inflammation. Half of such babies require surgery, which has a 40% mortality rate. A human milk diet can decrease the risk of this inflammation by 80% and the surgical rate by 90%, according to the milk bank.
Meanwhile, 70% of mothers with a baby in the neonatal intensive care unit are initially unable to provide sufficient milk for their child.
“We basically are protecting those babies until mama can make enough milk,” O’Connor said.
Outgrowing the Strip
The Milk Bank & Cookies event supports the organization’s capital campaign to fund the renovation of a new facility.
With the aid of the Hillman Foundation and the Heinz Endowments, the nonprofit has purchased a former Allegheny Health Network building in Bellevue, allowing it to nearly quadruple the space of its current Strip District location.
The aging Bellevue facility is in need of millions of dollars of repairs, however, and the need is pressing.
“Just last week, we used the last outlet in the [Strip District] building for another refrigerator,” O’Connor said. “So we really are critically out of space.”
Adequately meeting the needs of the organization’s entire service region requires the expansion, she said. Little lives are depending on it.
“Donor milk isn’t just about food — it’s not just about calories and protein and nutrition,” O’Connor said. “We’re serious medicine.”
Milk Bank & Cookies will be held Nov. 6 at Stage AE, 400 North Shore Drive. Tickets are $75 at midatlanticmilkbank.org.