[PHOTO: Becca and her family — provided by Becca, August 2026]
Some people join a coalition. Becca Brandt French joined ours and quietly made it better in about four different directions at once.
This summer, Becca welcomed a brand-new baby. And with support from Breastfeed Durham, Becca completed the Certified Breastfeeding Specialist program through Lactation Education Resources. We are so proud of her we could burst.
A little about what Becca has given Durham
Becca came to us as a volunteer and turned out to be a project manager with a remarkable story behind her. One that started when she studied abroad in Ghana as an undergraduate and helped launch a recycling program that turned discarded plastic into sewn goods and income for a center serving street children. That project won the Carolina Challenge and launched her into years of social entrepreneurship, splitting her time between Durham and Ghana.
She brought all of that here.
She built the system that holds our work together. For years our grants and activities lived in one enormous spreadsheet. Becca researched the options, walked our team through a full comparison, and chose Trello. Not because it was the fanciest, but because, as she put it, it’s “the easiest to learn, especially if you’re a visual learner… more accessible for volunteers that aren’t going to be digging into these types of tools.” She built the boards, got us the nonprofit discount, and trained our staff herself. We still run on them today.
She spent a year on the sidewalks of Durham. Becca trained with Bernadette Greene and took North Durham, a part of the county we hadn’t really covered. She went business to business, door to door, asking owners to become breastfeeding-friendly community partners. She wrote the follow-up template the whole team now uses. She dreamed up a cheat sheet so the next round of student volunteers wouldn’t start from scratch. And she kept going back to the tough ones, again and again, with more patience than any of us had.
She helped fund the work. Becca led grant applications to the Tuttleman Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline, and the Allen Foundation, often writing in the evenings after her kids were down.
And she was the face at the door. At our Family Festival, Becca ran the check-in table. As Love said afterward: “If Becca and Leonel can do check-in, all problems are solved. They’re the two warmest, friendliest, perfect people to say hello.”
In her own words
When Becca wrote to tell us she’d finished the CBS program, she said this:
“I’ve already used the knowledge gained to more confidently support breastfeeding families in my network and intend on finding more ways to utilize it. In the meantime I just wanted to express my gratitude! After taking a volunteer break to complete the training I’m looking forward to doing more business outreach again this Fall.”
A new baby, a new certification… And her first instinct was to thank us and ask what else she could carry.
That’s been true from the beginning. Early on, she told us:
“Thank you for letting me be part of it, because these are things that I really love to do… I really appreciate the trust that you just welcomed me in with.”
She was thanking us for the chance to do the work.
Welcome back, Becca
Becca returns to business outreach this fall with a new credential, a new baby, and the same warmth she’s always brought.
Congratulations, Becca. Thank you for every door, every board, every evening spent writing grants, and for pouring your time and energy back into Durham families. We can’t wait to have you back.
Want to volunteer with Breastfeed Durham? We’d love to hear from you and yes, we help our volunteers pursue lactation training and certification.