UPDATE, Nov. 20, 2025:
On Nov. 18, a spokesperson from First Baptist Church told D Magazine that prior to the call that Monroe recorded in her TikTok, she had previously contacted the church and hung up after they provided information about available resources. The spokesperson also said that the church had been alerted about similar calls and had reason to believe it was not a genuine inquiry.
“At First Baptist Dallas, we have several programs in place to meet these very needs, including assistance for mothers, access to baby formula, and referrals to our crisis pregnancy center, which is especially equipped to respond to these types of requests. In fact, we regularly provide baby formula and other essential resources to mothers in need,” the church spokesperson told D Magazine.
ORIGINAL STORY:
“I’m calling your church to test if they would help feed a starving baby,” Nikalie Monroe says at the start of each video in her series.
Monroe, based in Kentucky, has been phoning churches and other religious institutions across the country since October, asking for formula to feed her — fictional — baby, then documenting the calls on her TikTok page.
The majority do not offer to help her — as of Monday, Monroe had recorded 10 offers of assistance and 33 refusals. Three of the refusals were from Texas churches in videos that have over 2 million views combined. Her entire series has received millions of views and grown her TikTok following to over 400,000. The Barbed Wire reached out to Monroe but has not received a response.
Although Monroe’s situation is hypothetical, there are real families unable to afford baby formula as benefits of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as, SNAP, remain in limbo due to the Trump administration’s efforts to withhold emergency funding during the government shutdown. SNAP is the country’s largest anti-hunger program, serving 42 million people. Experts and advocates have been warning of dire consequences if the program isn’t funded.
On Friday, Monroe posted a video calling Abundant Church, a megachurch in El Paso. She played an audio of a crying baby in the background and explained the same situation that she describes in every video — she ran out of formula for her two-month-old last night, so the baby had gone all night and day without anything to eat. Could the church help her?
“Unfortunately the food pantry is only available on Sundays, and I don’t know if we have any baby formula at the moment,” said the woman who answered the phone.
When Monroe asked about how to get formula from the pantry, the woman clarified that the pantry didn’t have any items for babies.
“I actually don’t even have a baby, this was a social experiment to see which churches would actually help feed a hungry baby,” Monroe said. The woman hung up on her.
Abundant Church’s lead pastor Jared Nieman addressed Monroe’s video, which received nearly 1 million views on TikTok, in his Sunday service, adding that the church did not handle the call with the urgency a situation like Monroe’s would require.
“I’ve been mortified by it, embarrassed by it,” Nieman said. “We made a mistake and I apologize. I hope you know the heart of our church, and I think all of you know the heart of our church. Our church is to help people. We would never deny helping a desperate mom or baby, and I hope you know that.”
Nieman said the church has addressed the issue internally and is reviewing its protocols and responses. Abundant Church did not respond to The Barbed Wire’s request for comment.
On Nov. 5, Monroe posted a video calling Lakewood Church in Houston, televangelist Joel Osteen’s church. The woman who answered the phone told her that she could take Monroe’s information and put in a request with their Benevolence Ministry.
“How long would that take?” Monroe asked.
“It could take a couple days or a couple weeks,” the woman responded. “If approved.”
As several people pointed out in Monroe’s comments, Lakewood initially closed their doors to victims of Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Several commenters suggested Monroe would have had better luck with Mattress Mack, the Houston celebrity and avid philanthropist who owns the Gallery Furniture retail chain. “He’d probably have a warehouse pallet of formula dropped off,” someone commented.
“Immediately started crying when you called with the crying audio in the background cause that’s literally someone’s reality,” another commenter wrote.
Monroe posted another video on Sunday after calling First Baptist Church in Dallas. The woman who answered told her that she was not aware of any programs the church has to help. Then Monroe informed her she was conducting a social experiment to see which churches would help feed a hungry baby.
“So, what would you like for me to say?” the woman asked.
“Honestly, my next question is, are you pro-life? Is your church pro-life?” Monroe asked. The church hung up.
Lakewood Church and First Baptist Dallas also did not respond to The Barbed Wire’s requests for comment.
“I did not expect this social experiment to go viral at all,” Monroe said in a video on Sunday. “I literally had 300 followers. I did not expect this at all and neither did the people who said yes.”
The churches and other religious institutions that offered to help Monroe have been flooded with donations and goodwill online, while people have started leaving one-star reviews for the churches that denied assistance in Monroe’s calls. In another video on Sunday, Monroe discouraged her followers from retaliating against the churches and encouraged people to instead focus on creating change within their own communities.
“I don’t want to bring division. I don’t want to bring judgement and hate. I want to bring positivity and change,” Monroe said. “The churches that said yes to a liberal, tattooed lesbian were a MAGA church, a Hispanic church, a Black church, a Catholic church, and an Islamic mosque. That should tell you everything.”
She added: “This was to bring us together, not divide us.”
