A community baby box, which provides a safe place for distressed mothers to surrender their babies, saved its first infant less than one year after an Indiana teenager raised $10,000 to put it in place.
Hunter Wart, a 19-year-old from Seymour, Indiana, poured a year’s worth of lawn mowing profits into a Safe Haven Baby Boxes device for his local fire station. Safe Haven installed a window where struggling mothers can surrender their newborns inside the fire station anonymously. When the box is opened, an alarm is triggered to alert medical personnel that a child has been surrendered.
The device and installation would have cost the community $10,000, but Wart put forward the funds, and in June 2019 the box was installed. Less than a year later, the alarm sounded at Seymour Fire Station notifying staff that a mother had used the box to save her child.
Chief Brad Lucas said his department was “ecstatic” when they found the hour-old baby girl safe and warm in the box. He added, “It worked perfect, exactly how it was designed to work.”
Lucas explained that the baby was brought to a nearby hospital to receive medical attention. The little girl was placed in the care of state child protective services.
Wart was thrilled when he was told that his hard work had saved the baby’s life. He said he hopes that the child will look him up when she’s a bit older, saying, “I’m hopeful that one day she will see the story of how she was safely surrendered in the Safe Haven Baby Box I raised the money for … and search online for me.”
Monica Kelsey, who was abandoned as an infant and founded the nonprofit organization Safe Haven Baby Boxes, told CNN what has happened in the past when mothers did not have a designated spot to surrender their child.
“These babies were left in trash cans and dumpsters. One was left at the door of a hospital. That baby had frozen to death before he was found,” Kelsey explained. “But this little girl [in Seymour] is going to grow up knowing how much her birth mom loved her just like I did.”
Seymour Mayor Matt Nicholson lauded the city council after the baby was saved, telling the Tribune, “Here we are 224 days later and we’ve had our first baby saved by the box, and I think that’s an awesome feat. I’m glad the city of Seymour and the council chose to get the box when they did.”
Wart said he plans to start raising funds to provide another baby box in the state. Over the past two years, five babies in Indiana have been saved after being placed in the boxes.
