Denise O’Connor and the Mid-Atlantic Mothers Milk Bank staff and board of directors knew the nonprofit had outgrown its rented Lawrenceville building at the end of 2022.
So they started looking for a building to move to and own, a frustrating search throughout Western Pennsylvania that turned up structures way too expensive and too costly to renovate for their current and future needs.
Then kismet: A building originally owned by Suburban General Hospital in Bellevue, which closed in 2010, and right in the center of town, came to their attention. The price — $950,000 — fit their budget. O’Connor said the Milk Bank will occupy 15,000 square feet of its total 19,000 to fill its current and projected needs. And it’s located near major roads, a necessity because many breast milk donors travel will travel to the building.
And there’s more: Milk Bank executive director and co-founder O’Connor grew up near there and took her parents to doctors appointments in that very building.
O’Connor, Milk Bank leaders and board members, foundation donors, state officials and milk donors and recipients gathered on Sept. 19 to announce the building purchase and the public phase of the One to Grow On $8 million capital campaign. The nonprofit has raised $4.1 million in its silent phase, and it aims to finish fundraising and move there at the end of 2025.
Right after the event, Highmark Health Bright Blue Futures announced a $100,000 grant to help it move closer to that goal. The Henry L. Hillman Foundation had nominated the Milk Bank for the award.
O’Connor said the Milk Bank has enough funds to start demolition and begin renovation work, estimated at $4.5 million. She said they know the old boiler system will have to be replaced by a new HVAC system, which will cost $1 million. Rothschild Doyno Collaborative, a Pittsburgh architectural firm, has developed plans for three of the building’s four stories that will include a state-of-the-art Milk Bank lab, much improved milk storage, a dedicated shipping/receiving area, and the Human Milk Science Institute and Biobank, according to its website. The building will have plenty of room for the 13 staff members, which includes screeners, lab technicians and administrators.
The location is unique, O’Connor said. The other milk banks across the country are all tucked away in some suburban park. None are on a main street. Plus Bellevue has been undergoing a revitalization, with active community groups, a growing business district and supportive local elected officials. State Sen. Wayne Fontana, D-Brookline, and Rep. Emily Kinkead, D-Brighton Heights, both champions of the Milk Bank and its work, are thrilled to have it moving into their district, she added.
The Henry L. Hillman Foundation’s and Heinz Endowments’ financial support enabled the Milk Bank to purchase the building, and Hillman added an additional $1.4 million for construction work to begin, O’Connor said. The nonprofit has applied for some additional state funding, mainly grants from casino revenue, and it is awaiting decisions on those.
The Milk Bank serves hospitals and residents across Pennsylvania, West Virginia and parts of New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. Its mission as stated on its website explains, “Our organization strongly believes that a regional model of milk banking is most effective because it allows us to foster deeper community and clinical partnerships along with more easily connecting to donors. As a result, we are better able to identify and fulfill the needs of medically fragile babies.”
A news release announcing the building purchase and capital campaign stated the demand for pasteurized human milk has increased nearly six-fold since the Milk Bank opened its doors in 2016. Currently, it distributes more than 30,000 ounces of milk per month, serving more than 55 hospitals, including NICUs and well-baby units, and many outpatients.
Each year, 11% of the 140,000 babies born in Pennsylvania and West Virginia arrive prematurely, according to the news release. Babies receiving donated breast milk in the NICU for necessary supplementation have lower rates of serious complications and tend to leave the hospital earlier than those being fed formula. When mothers’ own milk is unavailable, Mid-Atlantic Mothers’ Milk Bank provides donated human milk, which is screened, tested and pasteurized.
O’Connor and the news release emphasized a key factor in the building purchase is the nonprofit has outgrown its lab and “is poised to move, grow and become one of the largest milk banks in the nation.” The new location will kickstart the nonprofit’s efforts to become one of the largest milk banks in the nation, which includes working to create greater acceptance of pasteurized human milk among the medical community and NICU families and “increase milk donations so that this life-saving medicine can reach the vulnerable babies that need it most.”
Rothschild Doyno Collaborative architects visited the Lawrenceville location and larger milk banks across the country before drawing plans that led to a building needs rubric, O’Connor said.
“We have so outgrown our space,” she stressed. “We had an open house, and it was literally shoulder to shoulder here. We have 13 employees. We can’t add in a classroom. We have had to continually convert spaces to having freezers in there. We can’t even fit another freezer in this space. We’ve used all the [electricity]. We didn’t even know where we’d fit another outlet [for one].”
The need for a reliable supply of donor milk, including bridge milk for sick babies while they await surgeries for heart defects and other health problems or need a dietary boost to aid growth issues, drives O’Connor and her staff and board.
Since Owen’s Law became effective in Pennsylvania in November 2023 and Medicaid now covers prescribed and pasteurized breast milk as critical nourishment for medically fragile infants, O’Connor has seen an escalation for donor milk requests. It is hard for parents to pay the $100 per day for donated breast milk, and the legislation eased that burden as parents of many income levels can pursue Medicaid coverage for their very sick children.
This is important because 70% of the nonprofit’s donor milk stays in the state. O’Connor is grateful to the hospitals, clinics and pediatric specialists who spread the word about their services, and as a result donors are equally dispersed across the state.
The other states served have lower totals, with 10% headed to West Virginia and mainly West Virginia University’s J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital. Delaware distributes its donor milk through outpatient centers, O’Connor said, with more hospital connections and partnerships in New Jersey and Maryland.
Being independent and not attached to a single hospital is an advantage. It enables the Milk Bank to forge community relationships and reach donors and parents through an active social media engagement campaign, O’Connor said.
The new building will give the Milk Bank the room to use new methods of pasteurization that she expects to come in five to 10 years, and all will require large equipment.
The biobank started right before the pandemic, O’Connor said, when one of its former board members explained that researchers needed breast milk samples to gather data on its use and benefits. The Milk Bank collects them, places the samples in test tubes and freezes them to send to researchers across the country. That has generated more referrals from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health, and O’Connor said the only other similar biobank is located at the University of California at San Diego.
The capital campaign has money earmarked for the biobank, which has a separate board of directors, to become what it should be, the executive director said. “We want to bring down the barriers to research,” she said.
O’Connor said the other key need is a 50% increase in staff to match the projected increase in requests for donor milk. She said her organization has been fiscally sound since its second year of operations, but it can’t keep up with the steep growth trajectory. So the capital campaign, led by Denny Civic Solutions, will be a “huge capacity building opportunity for us.”
An endowment as part of the fundraising would give it a safety net, O’Connor said, to deal with building upkeep, replace equipment and more. The goal for that portion is $1 million.
A planning grant from Hillman a few years back led the Milk Bank to Blender Inc., a Pittsburgh integrated marketing agency, that has helped the nonprofit with its education and outreach efforts.
For example, through a maternity care innovation state grant, the Milk Bank looked at access and education issues with its hospitals — language barriers to breastfeeding materials, insurance coverage requests and more — and created new materials. It debuted the Nico animated video on its website and created materials in seven different languages that will be distributed statewide.
“Nico will be all over the place. We’re the only milk bank that has anything like that in the country,” O’Connor said.
Last year the Milk Bank held a successful fundraising and awareness event, Milkshake and Cookies. This year’s is set for Oct. 17 at PPG Wintergarden with a cookie competition and Rick Sebak as the host. It plans to hold this and build upon it every year.
O’Connor said she hasn’t taken a day off in a year and a half but remains driven and ready to tackle this major fundraising campaign with her staff and board.
“When you hear these stories of the babies, [and meet] the families that come here, you are overwhelmed,” she said. “All right, keep on marching. How can you not? It’s just simple intervention.
“My best guess, calculating the average amount of milk our NICU babies use and out outpatients, we’ve probably helped 25,000 babies. That’s what keeps us going. And we’re a little nonprofit.”
More information is available at midatlanticmilkbank.org.
Helen is a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Contact her at hfallon@unionprogress.com.