Corsicana Opens Safe Haven Baby Box

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By Emilie Parten, Reporter for The NavCo Chronicle

In August of 1972, a seventeen your old girl was brutally attacked and raped and left on the side of the road. The girl pressed charges, and the man was arrested and charged, but as things were getting back to normal for the young woman, she found out she was pregnant. Her baby was born in April and only two hours later, the young woman abandoned her child at a fire station. That child grew into Monica Kelsey, the founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes. The first Safe Haven Baby Box was installed in the fire house where Kelsey worked in Woodburn, Indiana in 2016. Now, just eight years later, Corsicana became home to the 260th box in the nation and the third box in the great state of Texas with the other two being located in Abilene and Lubbock and two more are set to be installed in quick succession in Ennis and Palestine.

The Safe Haven Baby Box gives the parents a safe, free, and completely anonymous way to give up their child. Since the first was installed in Indiana in 2016, there have been no deaths due to abandonment. 203 babies have been given up through the Safe Haven program with 51 of those being through the boxes. “203 lives that were changed because of a box in a wall,” Monica Kelsey stated, “And just think, we are here blessing a box in a wall so that we don’t have to bless a box going in the ground.” Texas has one of the highest child abandonment rates in the U.S. with eight babies dumped in Houston just this year. Between 2017 and 2023, this program could have saved 95 babies.

The Mayor, Mike Fletcher, got choked up during his speech, saying “It’s one of those things you hope you never have to use but you’re glad its here.”

The boxes are climate controlled and wired with an alarm system that immediately triggers when the box is opened. The backside of the box is completely clear so the firefighters can see the inside of the box. The Hope center donated a bag of items for the firefighters to use, including clothing, diapers, and formula.

Safe Haven Laws (also known as Baby Moses Laws) in Texas state that a child can be left at ANY fire station, hospital, free-standing emergency center or Emergency Medical Services building with an employee and no questions outside of medical history will be asked. The child must be 60 days old or younger and be safe and unharmed. The baby box takes away any personal interactions and allows for complete anonymity.

Monica Kelsey ended her powerful speech with a joke, saying “Thank you, Mayor, for allowing us to cut a hole in your half-million-dollar firehouse. We really appreciate it!”