Starting at the turn of the twentieth century, a criminal enterprise engulfed all poor communities: milk was being sold that had been contaminated with dirty water or adulterated with chalk. Syrian children were suffering, not only from the diseases carried in the milk, but from malnutrition. The New York Milk Committee, a volunteer organization, set up milk stations in poor neighborhoods throughout the city, including one at 47 Washington Street in 1911. They not only sold pure milk but offered parenting and nutrition classes to immigrant mothers. Interpreters were on hand to help translate these classes into the dozen or so languages in use. Infant mortality rates plummeted, but like many good works, the center was soon closed for lack of funds.