Original Baby Bottle Brigade Archives

The BABY BOTTLE BRIGADE STORY

Knights of Columbus – Metro St. Louis, MO

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Click above to donate online!

The Baby Bottle Campaign II (BBC-II) begins the weekend of September 11, 2016.

Please Return the Baby Bottle with your donation to:
Incarnate Word Parish
13416 Olive Blvd.
Chesterfield, MO 63017.

You may bring your bottle when you come to Mass on the weekends of October 1st & 2nd or 8th & 9th (Sat. 5pm or Sunday 7:15am, 8:45am, 10:30am, 12:15pm or 6:00pm Life Teen). You may also return your bottle on weekdays to the parish office. All bottles should be returned no later than October 9, 2016. Make your donations On-Line to the Baby Bottle Campaign II (BBC-II)  by clicking on the Virtual Baby Bottle to the left.

Please return the baby bottle – even if you were unable to collect any money.

It happens to perfectly coincide with the 5th anniversary launch of our first IW Baby Bottle Campaign on the same dates in 2011. The IW Pro-Life committee is a co-sponsor of the Campaign. We will distribute baby bottles, after all Masses, in order to permit parishioners, their family, friends and associates the opportunity to donate funds to three very important STL Pro-Life Street Ministries.

Some donations may qualify for the State of Missouri’s Pro-Life Tax Credit program.

As we have previously mentioned, the term “Street Ministries” is the name we coined to describe three separate Pro-Life ministries which are crucial to the effort to help save both the lives of babies and their mothers from a life of regret. These ministries are: Thrive of St. Louis, Coalition for Life St. Louis and Respect Life Apostolate of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

The Baby Bottle Brigade (“BBB”) effectively began on the weekend of 9/11/11 at Incarnate Word Parish in Chesterfield, Missouri. IW Knights of Columbus council #9981 launched the first Baby Bottle Campaign (“BBC”) that weekend. State Deputy John Appelbaum joined on of the IW Knights at the pulpit to announce the program and the fact that Baby Bottles would be distributed to all parishioner after each of the 6 weekend. Also, the Life Teens would receive bottles as would the student at IW grade school and the Parish School of Religion. We will be distributing the bottles

It would have been hard for anyone attending Mass that weekend to recognize that something different wasn’t occurring that beautiful weekend. The big green ThriVe of St. Louis Mobile Medical Center was parked in front of the church at each Mass. A white tent was all deployed in front of the Church. A large number of IW Knights of Columbus were stationed in front of each exit and were holding a dozen Baby Bottles for distribution.
The IW Knights were not the first organization to use Baby Bottles to raise Pro-Life funds. In fact the idea came from the Lutherans for Life of St. Charles. Missouri – and we thank them for their early cooperation in helping us plan our Campaign. We know that other KofC councils throughout the state have used Baby Bottles to raise Pro-Life funds. However, what the Brigade has done differently is to super-charge and organize it in a manner where it can coordinate a concentrated effort to close down a major abortion clinic and in the process put abortion out of the state of Missouri.

In December of 2011, the Knights’ councils at both Ascension of Chesterfield and Sacred Heart of Eureka joined the Brigade. Both of their Campaigns began in January of 2012 and ended in February. The Brigade also entered into a Registration Request agreement – with the Life Really Matters ministry – and advanced over 1,100 Baby Bottles to be distributed to a large group of high school students who will ride buses to Washington D. C. for the annual March for Life event. Members of the Brigade will collect the bottles – January 20, 2012 – as the students board the bus and head to D.C. All three Campaigns will donate all funds raised to the Brigade.

On December 8, 2011 – the feast of the Immaculate Conception – a laptop ultrasound system was delivered to ThriVe of St. Louis – a local pregnancy resource center. This ultrasound was the first Pro-life asset purchased and donated by the Brigade. The funds for the purchase were collected during the initial Baby Bottle Campaign. From the funds from that Campaign the Brigade was also able to:

  1. provide a down-payment on a second Mobile Medical Center to be purchased and donated to ThriVe; purchase nearly 7,000 Baby Bottles for Brigade members to use during future campaigns;
  2. procure a Pro-life video to be used by all the Brigade members;
  3. begin the construction of a Brigade web site;
  4. pay to hire a consultant to create a social media campaign in order to take the Brigade to the Internet; and
  5. create graphic and signage pieces to be used in the Campaigns.

At a Missouri State Knights of Columbus meeting in early December, 2011 the State Deputy announced that Baby Bottle Campaigns would be used state-wide to raise Pro-life funds. Additionally, the Missouri Knights would begin discussions with the State Deputies of Illinois and Kansas in an attempt to convince them to emulate the Missouri BBB program.