OCEANSIDE, Calif. — A young mother living on Camp Pendleton is getting national attention because of her struggles caused by the nationwide shortage of baby formula.
Darice Browning posted on Facebook that the situation is bringing her to tears. That’s when The New York Times picked up the story and from there, it just exploded.
Browning has two daughters, 10-month-old Octavia and 21-month-old Tokyo.
“We are a Marine family, yes. I’m 23. I'm not too young, but I had them sort of young,” she said.
Little Octavia has a dairy-protein allergy and needs medical-grade baby formula, which is especially hard to find during the current nationwide shortage of formula.
“It's not like I can go to the store and find this formula. So, when I got down to about half a can of formula, I started hysterically crying on the floor telling them like ‘I'm so sorry that I can't feed you today. I'm so sorry. I can't do the extra bottle you want,’” said Browning.
She started posing on a Facebook page for other military moms, and then the The New York Times messaged her.
“I thought it was fake because when someone says they're from The New York Times on your Facebook in your spam it’s just, you know, so I humored him. I said, sure, I'm available,” she recalled.
The New York Times published an article and, from there, it just took off.
“It's trickled to CNN. It's trickled to the Inside Edition. It's trickled to the Headline News, MSNBC, and I got on CBC radio in Canada, as well,” she said.
Complete strangers started sending her baby formula.
“People were actually going on eBay and Amazon in Canada and Columbia and Australia and sending it to me. I've had to stop responding to a lot of them because I'm not the only one in need,” said Browning.
She even appeared on live TV with a White House spokesperson.
“What you say can impact the nation, the country and I've now reached worldwide, and it's brought so much attention. It's reached the White House and now things are moving a lot more fast paced,” she said.
On Thursday, the Biden administration announced the FDA is looking to boost production and imports of baby formula.
“Is there anything else you want to say?” a reporter asked Browning.
“Hi, mom. that's about it,” she said.
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