TikTok user, Nikalie Monroe's, social experiment exposing how churches respond to desperate mothers has gone viral. Monroe, a Kentucky woman and former teen mother, began calling houses of worship across America last week whilst pretending to be a new mother who ran out of baby formula overnight. Playing the sound of a crying infant in the background, she asked each institution if they could help feed her starving two-month-old baby.
Of the 39 religious institutions Monroe contacted, only 9 offered immediate assistance. Those willing to help included a Catholic church in Alcoa, Tennessee, Heritage Hope Church of God in Kentucky, a Baptist church in Louisville, Kentucky, a Buddhist temple in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and an Islamic Centre in Charlotte, North Carolina.
