BENTON, Ark. — Benton is one step closer to installing the very first Safe Haven Baby Box in Arkansas.
Mothers can anonymously surrender their newborn child with zero consequences. Benton City Council voted last week to install the box at the central fire station. A fundraising event Thursday was held at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic to help raise money for the program.
"I don't want any child to be abandoned like I was," Monica Kelsey said.
For Monica Kelsey, the Safe Haven Baby Box program is personal.
"It goes back to my early beginnings of me being abandoned two hours after my birth mom gave birth, getting to know her it really set me on a course to be able to show empathy for the women that find themselves in a crisis that they can't get out of," she said.
Kelsey founded the program six years ago, and the first box was installed in Indiana in 2016.
"We've been around for three years and we've had 58 women come through our program," Kelsey said.
Lloyd Cambre with Knights of Columbus says the box will likely be up and running at the central Fire Station within the next few weeks.
"We'd like to raise about $10,000 and that allows for the purchase and installation and maintenance over the life of the box," Lloyd Cambre said.
The Safe Haven box has no cameras and once the mother or father places the baby in the box, an alarm goes off inside the fire station.
"The fireman come and pick the baby up, EMS is called in, they check the baby out and they go through the normal processes for adoption," Cambre said.
Cambre said the average time a baby stays inside the box is less than two and a half minutes.
"Indiana has seven boxes in place today. Since 2016, zero babies have been found abandoned or dead in the state," Cambre said.
Under the Safe haven law, the child cannot be more than 30 days old when dropped off. But Kelsey said the program will help out any newborn baby.
If you are someone you know is in need of this program, call the Safe Haven Crisis Line at 1-866-99Baby1.