“It’s a good day to be in Richmond,” Monica Kelsey told a crowd who gathered to bless a newly installed Safe Haven Baby Box on Tuesday (Aug. 13). “Today we offer women a 100% anonymous option if they so choose to surrender their infant here in Richmond, Kentucky.”
Kelsey, the founder and CEO of Safe Haven Baby Boxes, was abandoned on the side of a road when she was two hours old, and she has made it her mission to ensure women in crisis have a safe, legal option for anonymously surrendering an infant.
Safe Haven boxes, made possible in the state by the Kentucky legislature’s unanimous support, are often placed in police, emergency medical or fire stations — like Richmond’s, which is located at Fire Station No. 1 on 200 N. Madison Avenue.
After placing her baby in the climate-controlled, electronically monitored box and closing the door, the parent is free to leave as the box automatically locks and triggers a series of silent alarms. An individual with emergency medical training is then able to respond within minutes and take custody of the infant for ongoing care.
“This box offers no shame, no blame and no names,” Kelsey said.
Genuine need
Richmond’s journey to provide the 39th Safe Haven box in Kentucky began with Jessica Hess, a board member of Pregnancy Help Center (PHC), who set up a meeting between the pregnancy resource center and fire department leadership to discuss the possibility of providing that resource last year.
Roof, executive director of PHC, said on Tuesday that a week before their scheduled meeting, a woman called the pregnancy center for an ultrasound. When Roof asked her about her intentions for her pregnancy, the woman said: “I’m going to put it in one of those baby boxes.”
“We hadn’t publicized our meeting,” Roof told attendees on Tuesday. “She had already done her research. She knew where she was in a position where she could not care for that child, but she wanted to lovingly surrender. She was going to drive to Louisville and put (her baby) in a box there.”
That satisfied one question asked at that meeting the following week: Is this really needed in Richmond?
“From that instance, we knew that there was a possibility that it would be needed,” Roof said. “We’d rather have the box and not need it, then need it and not have it.”
Roof added that decisions surrounding pregnancy and parenting are often complicated.
“We see young women who are often facing very difficult life circumstances as they try to make those decisions, and the Safe Haven Baby Box provides a life affirming option for them to not only choose life but choose a better life than the life they are currently able to provide, for whatever that reason might be,” Roof said.
Compassion and cooperation
Fire Chief Brooks Elder said Tuesday was a long time coming.
“I didn’t really know about Safe Haven baby box all that much until (that meeting), and they brought this to us and helped us financially with it, and have been a big assist in all this,” Elder said.
“This would not have been probably as fast without the support of an anonymous donor who stepped forward and sacrificially gave to fully fund this box, wanting no recognition but wanting to use their gifts from God to create a life-affirming legacy in our city,” Roof added. “So, to them, I say thank you.”
‘Manifestation of compassion’
Richmond mayor Robert Blythe applauded the partnership that produced the city’s Safe Haven box.
“What we’re seeing here today is certainly the manifestation of compassion,” he said.
Blythe also referenced Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
“I always remind my congregation that all things are not good … but out of many of those things can come some good, and what we’re witnessing here today is one of those cases,” Blythe said.
He prayed over the Safe Haven box, and then attendees were invited inside the fire station to see the box in action.
Richmond’s Safe Haven box is not only the 39th in the state, but the 257th across all 19 states where parents can access the safe, legal, anonymous option in a crisis.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Tessa Redmond and originally published by Kentucky Today.
