Safe Haven
Ribbon-cutting for baby box is today at Clinton Fire Station 2
Clinton firefighter Dustin Wenz looks over the Safe Haven Baby Box recently installed at Station 2 in South Clinton. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
The $12,000 cost of the box plus its installation have been paid by Isaiah House, an organization that looks after displaced children.
“Our intention is to have one of these baby boxes placed near every one of our Isaiah House locations,” said Andrea Townsend, program coordinator for the location in Anderson County. “We have 22 locations in 12 states.”
As for the baby box at Station 2, “We sponsored it and brought it to Clinton,” Townsend said. “We’ve been working on this for about two-and-a-half years, and we had to wait for the new bay to be built in the fire station.
“We are extremely excited that the city of Clinton will be the new home of a Safe Haven Baby Box,” Townsend said. “The [box] will allow hope and a new beginning for a child in need, while providing grace for the surrendering parents.
“Being a voice to the fatherless and advocating for the children in our community is what we are all called to do,” she said.
She added that “additional recognition goes to Hicks Construction for [its] installation of the Safe Haven Baby Box, and the city of Clinton, along with the Clinton Fire Department, for their partnership with this project.”
The baby boxes are made and distributed by the Safe Haven Baby Boxes organization, and are made to hold an infant safely and securely until firefighters or other emergency personnel can get the baby to a hospital.
A baby box “is a safety device provided for under [a] state’s Safe Haven Law and legally permits a mother in crisis to safely, securely, and anonymously surrender [the baby] if they are unable to care for their newborn,” says an explanation on the organization’s website (shbb.org).
The box “is installed in an exterior wall of a designated fire station or hospital. It has an exterior door that automatically locks upon placement of a newborn inside the [box], and an interior door [that] allows a medical staff member to secure the surrendered newborn from inside the designated building,” the website notes.
Boxes can be installed only at fire stations that are staffed at all times, as the South Clinton station is.
Tennessee is one of just 20 states that have passed so-called “safe haven” laws, which allow mothers to surrender newborns legally “as a last resort option for women who want to maintain complete anonymity,” the website says.
The boxes are set up so they lock after the baby is placed inside, and they automatically call 911 and set off an alarm inside the fire station. Babies usually are in the box for no longer than five minutes.
Clinton City Manager Roger Houck said Monday that the baby box in Clinton was installed about two months ago, but has not been put into operation yet pending training of staff at the fire station.
“It will be ready to go once we cut the ribbon and say a blessing over it,” Townsend said.
Rocky Top will be getting one of the boxes soon, and there already are baby boxes installed and ready in Kingston and at Knoxville’s Fire Station 17, at 4804 Western Ave.
A church in Kingston has donated $28,000 to Rocky Top to pay for installation and maintenance of a baby box in the city’s downtown fire station.
During last month’s City Council meeting, the woman whose idea it was, Linda Wolfenbarger of Kingston, was on hand to explain the plans for the Rocky Top box.
She was joined by Ben Williams of Kington United Methodist Church, who presented a $28,000 check to Rocky Top Mayor Kerry Templin to pay the $12,000 cost of the box, along with $12,000 for installation and enough extra to pay $300 a year for 10 years of maintenance.
Williams, who runs the Clothes Closet at the Kingston church, said money made by that operation is funneled into community projects such as baby boxes. The church also helped pay for the baby box installed recently at the Kingston Fire Department.
When the box will be set up in Rocky Top has not yet been determined.
“It usually takes about a month to order it, and we have to have someone come to look to see where to put it,” Wolfenbarger said. “It is set up with three difference alarms that alert the fire and police departments and the ambulance service.
“The box is temperature controlled,” she said. “We have ours [Kington’s] in the back of the firehouse. It has to be where there are no cameras. The baby goes to the hospital, then to foster care.
“Also, the box will fit two babies, in case they have twins,” she said.
Babies are only in the box briefly before someone opens it from inside the fire station to retrieve the child. Wolfenbarger said.