Summer in Durham was hot, busy, and full of families. Here is what Breastfeed Durham, our partners, and a lot of volunteers did together between June and August 2026.
Every number on this page is a family who got help, a business that said yes, or a partner who showed up.
Summer by the numbers
A shop that said yes
On a Friday in late June, a nursing parent was asked to cover up at a downtown ice cream shop, and the story spread online overnight. By that afternoon our staff had trained the shop’s employees on North Carolina law, the owner had apologized publicly, and the business had applied to become a Breastfeeding Welcome Here Community Partner. Its award letter went out July 7.
That is what a breastfeeding family friendly community looks like when something goes wrong: a quick fix, a real apology, and one more place families are welcome.
In June, three of our team members carried Durham’s story to the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee’s national conference, including a plenary panel, and our advocates keep bringing lactation policy to Capitol Hill.
Back in the park
On July 18, Linels Higuera Ancidey, Bernadette Greene and Fariha Rahman tabled at the Book Harvest Summer Block Party and talked with 203 families. Two of those conversations turned into new partners in the making at the Carolina Theatre and Samaritan Health Center. A week later, the Durham County Library ordered a bilingual Breastfeeding Welcome Here cling for every one of its nine branches.
National Breastfeeding Month
August moved fast. Breastfeed Durham and the Durham County ACEs and Resilience Taskforce (DART) canvassed 40 businesses together at Brier Creek, pairing our workplace lactation materials with DART’s mental health resources. About 30 families stopped by our table at the KIPP Durham end-of-summer block party on Holloway Street, and the Durham Performing Arts Center let us know it had set up its own lactation pod for events.
The Durham Fire Department came to an August support circle to teach home fire safety. And Un Día a la Vez, our Spanish-language support circle, got good news of its own: after two years at Immaculate Conception, it is moving to a room at Duke Family Medicine this fall.
On August 28, Linels led the breastfeeding session for both the English and Spanish Centering Pregnancy groups at the Durham County Department of Public Health, Bernadette shared community resources, and twelve expectant parents left with resource bags, manual pumps and milk collectors. That same morning, Family Connects Durham nurses and our staff trained side by side on breast pumps at the Center for Child and Family Health.
Innovation in Human Lactation Award
At the Uplifting Black and Brown Lactation Success conference in Greensboro, our President and CEO, Love Anderson, received the Innovation in Human Lactation Award for the SAFE Infant Feeding Team’s work on infant feeding in emergencies. She shared the room with lactation providers from across North Carolina, many of whom have stood with this work for years.
On August 30, Bernadette and Claudia Hines were at Black August in the Park for Black Breastfeeding Week. Claudia’s reflection, “Your Blackness is welcome here,” is one of our favorite things we have published all year. Read or listen to it here.
Year one done, year two underway
Our free lactation clinic opened in September 2025 for Durham families who have no insurance, or not enough of it. A private donor who believed in this work made the launch possible, and the MAG Mutual Foundation sustained its first full year of operations. That same donor’s gift is now carrying year two, which began August 25, so the clinic is open and funded through August 2027.
The first nine months, September 2025 to May 2026
The work did not slow down for summer. The volunteer team has grown from 7 lactation professionals to 11, and Marissa Griffith came on as clinic coordinator in June. UNC Rex referred a Spanish-speaking family to us that month, and our providers followed up by phone. In July and August the team made six home deliveries of personal breast pumps to Spanish-speaking families, with hands-on pump teaching at every visit, and the team trained together on babywearing so they can help parents at community events too. In August, the Partnership for a Healthy Durham awarded $5,000 for pumps and lactation supplies for the clinic, which Durham County is purchasing this fall.
“What I love most is the diversity of the families we’ve served: single parents, married couples, partners showing up together, different races, low- and middle-income, prenatal and freshly postpartum, queer families. We’re not even a year old yet. Small but mighty.”
Alayjah Morrison, CLC, Lactation Collaborative volunteer
Meet the people behind the clinic: Nicola Young, Jess Woon, Dr. Nicole Forlan and the whole team. Families can book a free visit on the Lactation Collaborative page.
New faces for fall
Two new outreach coordinators, Jaquelyne Feliciano and Antoinette Fair, joined us on August 19. They spent their first weeks learning Centering Pregnancy and Ready, Set, Baby alongside Linels, and this fall they will be out in the 27703 and 27704 ZIP codes, meeting the businesses and families our summer canvassing did not reach. If you see them, say hello.
More moments from our year
Thank you
None of this happens alone. Thank you to the MAG Mutual Foundation, the Partnership for a Healthy Durham, the Durham County Department of Public Health, Book Harvest, KIPP Durham, the Durham County Library, DART, the Durham Fire Department, Duke Family Medicine, Immaculate Conception, Family Connects Durham, UNC Rex, every business that put up a sign this summer, and every family who stopped at our table.
Support Breastfeed Durham monthlyMake your business breastfeeding friendlyOutreach supplies for our summer events were made possible in part by a grant from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation.