Clinton dedicates ‘baby box’
Anthony Hamby leads the blassing of the Safe Haven Baby Box at the South Clinton fire station on Wednesday, April 17. Looking on are Andrea Townsend and Dana Hollifield of Isaiah House of Anderson County, which sponsored the box, and Maria Betts, a repre- sentative of the Safe Haven Baby Boxes organization. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
These 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.
“I hope we never have to use this,” Clinton Mayor Scott Burton said during the ceremony. “But I think in today’s world we need more resources like this.”
He thanked Andrea Townsend of Anderson County’s Isaiah House for sponsoring and obtaining grant money to pay for the box, and Hicks Construction Co. for installing the box in the rear wall of the fire station’s new bay.
Indiana-based Safe Haven Baby Boxes provides the boxes to communities that want them.
On hand for the Clinton baby box dedication was Maria Betts, assistant project coordinator for Safe Haven Baby Boxes.
She said the Clinton’s is “the 219th Safe Haven Baby Box in the nation and the fifth in Tennessee.”
“Founder Monica Kelsey started Safe Haven Baby Boxes after learning she was abandoned as an infant,” Betts said. “After seeing a baby box in operation at a church in Cape Town, South Africa, she has made it her personal mission to educate others on the Safe Haven law and to do what it takes to save the lives of innocent babies from being abandoned.
“To date, we have had 43 babies surrendered in our Safe Haven baby boxes,” she said. “Thank you to the city of Clinton Fire Department for giving families another option to safely surrender their newborns.”
Fire Chief Jim Little also addressed the assembly.
“It’s a great thing, it’s a great tool to have,” he said of the baby box. I mostly want to thank Andrea Townsend. She is a blessing for us as well as for Isaiah House.”
Anthony Hamby, pastor of Clinton’s Faith Promise Church, said the blessing over the baby box.
iah 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 in South Clinton, “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.”
The baby boxes 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 the fire station. It has an exterior door that automatically locks upon placement of a newborn inside, and an interior door that allows a medical staff member to secure the surrendered newborn from inside the building.
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.
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.