FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) – After finally accepting that her son had a protein allergy that kept him from taking her breast milk, Ruth Weinberger faced another issue: What to do with the three-month supply in her freezer?

She knew that the vitamins and nutrients in breast milk boost a baby’s immune system, so Weinberger, 41, began searching for a place to donate it.

In Europe and her native South Africa, human milk is banked to feed orphans and premature babies whose mothers may either be too sick or cannot produce milk to feed them. But clinics in South Florida wouldn’t accept it.

After weeks of online research, Weinberger found a pioneering group that ships the milk of American mothers to feed babies in Africa and reduce the risk of HIV infection in newborns.

The International Breast Milk Project, the brainchild of a Minnesota mom, has shipped roughly 10,000 ounces of milk to South Africa in the past year. It feeds infants whose mothers have HIV – which can be transmitted through breast milk – and those who live in areas where water is too dirty to mix with powdered formula.

Weinberger, who estimates she shipped about 1,000 ounces, is among about 100 mothers across the United States who have contributed. Another 500 have asked about donating. One Tampa mother has produced 1,000 ounces and continues stockpiling 10 ounces every day after feeding her daughter.

The group’s founder, Jill Youse, 29, is discussing a plan to ship milk to an infant-feeding center in Haiti.

More information about the project can be found at www.breastmilkproject.org.

Milk banking is not new. During the 1930s Great Depression, milk banks were established in Chicago and other cities.

Youse hopes milk banking might one day be as common as blood banking in the United States. “I think we’re at the tipping point of a nationwide movement,” she said.