(RNS) — When the Rev. Kim Sue Jackson, a 41-year-old Episcopal priest and Georgia state senator, started browsing Facebook for breastmilk donors in the Atlanta area, she didn’t think religion would play much of a role in the effort.
Over nine months, she drove through the state to pick up coolers full of breastmilk from mothers she met on the internet, to feed to her son, Khalil. Sometimes, the families giving away their excess breastmilk spoke about their gesture as an act of faith, she said.
One of the first openly gay priests of color in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, Jackson’s search led her to cross paths with mothers and other Christians whose lifestyles and theologies differ from hers. She recalled picking up milk from families who homeschooled their children, viewed raising large families as their faith mission and whose mothers stayed home to tend to their families. Their decision to donate, she said, was born out of the desire to “be a blessing for other families.”
Breanna Seibel talks on social media often about breastmilk support. Video Screengrab courtesy @breanna14500
She said her drives through rural Georgia to pick up milk turned into “little moments of connection with people I would have never met otherwise, that we were able to build community around.”
“It was really just the language that they used around like, ‘God has blessed me with this milk’ and in feeling like they had a responsibility to share it, and that it was a blessing to be able to do that,” Jackson told Religion News Service in an interview this week.
Now, Jackson, a Democrat who represents Georgia’s 41st district, is advocating for easier access to centralized milk banks, especially in rural areas. Still, though, she saw a religious silver lining in the outpouring of support from the strangers she met.
“While it would have saved me so many hours … there was something really beautiful …