Maya McFadden Photo
Formula Pantry visionary Brenda Adkins.
Pastor Brenda Adkins refuses to stand aside while families struggle to afford feed babies: She has decided to collect formula throughout the summer to start a Formula Pantry.
Brenda and Bishop John Adkins of His Divine Will Fellowship plan to create the emergency formula pantry out of their church on State Street to help struggling parents feed their children.
The Adkinses have been serving the community for years with holiday events like their Day of Joy for Thanksgiving, which recently fed 1,500 families, and with food and diaper drives.
During a pandemic grocery distribution, several parents began asking the church if it could provide formula and other baby meals.
Brenda had her first child at age 15.
“I was a young mom in need of pampers and milk at one point,” she said. “And as a mother you’re not going to let your child go without.”
Brenda reached out to the Diaper Bank of Connecticut. The Diaper Bank was having the same conversations. So the two partnered.
The church hopes to open the formula pantry mid-August. Brenda said they will start small to identify the community need. “I want it to become a citywide baby formula pantry,” Brenda said.
The church is also partnering with the Yale Community for New Haven Fund, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center, and Legacy School of Dance.
Before the opening, two formula drives will be hosted to stock the pantry. Participants can drop off non-expired formula or make monetary donations to the church’s Cash App ($hisdivinechurch).
The first drop-off event will be May 15 at 10:30 a.m to 2 p.m. The second will be July 31 at 9:30 a.m to 2:30 p.m. Both will be hosted at Legacy School of Dance at 53 Quinnipiac Ave Unit B.
While the government has a Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Brenda said many of the regulations make it difficult to access and/or make last for a full month.
“Some of these moms have to stay in abusive relations to feed their kids or prostitute even,” Brenda said. “It will be an emergency pantry to call when they run out.”
When the formula is provided to the parents, Brenda said, a handout will be included to teach parents how to properly make the milk with the correct amounts to avoid wasting the formula. “I know there’s moms out there that don’t use the right amounts, and that’s why it don’t last them a full month,” she said.
The pantry will also offer a variety of formula to service a range of infants’ feeding needs. A delivery option will also be offered for parents who may have no way to pick it up from the church.
Thank you to everyone who is addressing the need for formula and baby food. No child should go hungry. Please donate to this cause, and reach out to your elected officials in the federal and state levels to ask them to address this issue with funding for baby formula, baby food, diapers and period products and incontinence products. Those items are necessities that are extremely difficult to afford on low incomes and are very much critical to the quality of life.