The club’s annual Chocolate Milk Day at Lorraine Smaller Park honored Black breastfeeding families, a community legacy and the people carrying the work forward.
Music carried across Lorraine Smaller Park in North Minneapolis on Saturday, Aug. 22, as families gathered for the Chocolate Milk Club’s ninth annual Chocolate Milk Day, held in honor of Black Breastfeeding Week.
For Dr. LaVonne Moore, founder of the Chocolate Milk Club, the gathering was about more than breastfeeding education. It was about restoring a practice she sees as part of the community’s cultural inheritance.
“So our mission is to reclaim breastfeeding as a cultural practice.”
— Dr. LaVonne Moore, founder, Chocolate Milk Club
“So our mission is to reclaim breastfeeding as a cultural practice,” Moore said.
Moore, a nurse midwife and lactation consultant, said the Chocolate Milk Club supports and educates Black families around breastfeeding. August is National Breastfeeding Month, she said, and its last week is Black Breastfeeding Week. Chocolate Milk Day recognizes families who are breastfeeding now as well as women who breastfed years or decades ago. “We want to honor and recognize you because breastfeeding is really important,” she said.
The setting carried its own history. Moore said she grew up playing in the park, formerly Farwell Park, because it sits by her grandmother’s house. “I am an original North Sider,” she said.
The celebration brought that work into a public neighborhood space with live music, food, ice cream, raffles, T-shirts, diapers and wipes for families.
Traiveon Dunlap, who led the band on the bandstand, is originally from Houston, Texas, and has lived here about half his life. He said he stepped into the local music scene after graduating from Perpich Center for the Arts, and that performing in community allows musicians to directly reach the people their music is meant to serve. The mission, he said, is “to be a light, to be a beacon of joy.”
“Be that pocket of joy.”
— Traiveon Dunlap
“Be that pocket of joy,” Dunlap told the crowd from the stage. “Crack a smile, give a hug, show love, y’all. Because we need it in these times for sure.”
The afternoon also connected the current work to an earlier generation of breastfeeding advocacy.
Moore presented this year’s Rhonda Spears-White Award to doula and educator Rhonda Fellows. Moore described Spears-White as the first Black woman in the community to educate community-wide on breastfeeding, the advocate who started the work. “I came behind her and continued the work,” Moore said.
Fellows was recognized for supporting, advocating and educating around breastfeeding, birth and prenatal care. Moore described her as a mentor and trainer with her own practice and her own educational curriculum. Fellows received her certificate on the day; the crystal award that accompanies it had not yet arrived. Asked to say a few words, Fellows answered, “Absolutely not.”
That presentation drew a visible line across generations: Spears-White’s advocacy, Moore’s continuation of the work through the Chocolate Milk Club, and Fellows’ work with families today.
The park itself carries that line. Lorraine Smaller, for whom it was renamed, was one of the giants of this community — a fearless force for community development, for children and for families, and for claiming this space as sacred space for children, families and community. Chocolate Milk Day in that park pays homage to her.
Moore said this was the program’s ninth year and, as the event closed, thanked Insight News for being there, saying it was the first time the program had received news coverage.
For families needing support beyond the annual celebration, the Chocolate Milk Club’s work continues throughout the year.
How to connect with the Chocolate Milk Club
The Chocolate Milk Club holds a monthly breastfeeding support group called The Letdown, with food, fellowship, breastfeeding support and a massage therapist “to let you relax and let down so that milk will flow,” Moore said.
During fall hours, The Letdown meets at 6 p.m. on the first Monday of each month at Northside Healing Center, 2100 Emerson Ave. N., behind U.S. Bank in North Minneapolis.
The club’s Sister Friend program can organize support at home for families having trouble, and the club has supplies for those who need them. Find the Chocolate Milk Club group on Facebook, or search online for Chocolate Milk Club and Chosen Vessels Midwifery Services, which are also on Instagram.
