{"id":29102,"date":"2024-02-21T22:14:58","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T05:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmingtons-first-safe-haven-baby-box-dedicated\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:48:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:48:22","slug":"farmingtons-first-safe-haven-baby-box-dedicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmingtons-first-safe-haven-baby-box-dedicated\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmington\u2019s first Safe Haven Baby Box dedicated"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Monica
Monica Kelsey, the founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes, speaks at the blessing of box No. 205 Tuesday at Farmington Fire Station 2, 3800 English Blvd. Brad Ryan\/Special to the Tri-City Record<\/span>Brad Ryan<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Firefighters are dedicated to saving lives, and fire stations have long been places where mothers or parents in crisis could safely abandon an infant or child.<\/p>\n

The creator of Safe Haven Baby Boxes, Monica Kelsey, took that tradition and created a tool and a program to provide an alternative to unsafe abandonment. The temperature-regulated boxes are placed in fire stations\u2019 outer walls and babies can be safely left inside.<\/p>\n

Once inside the box, the door locks and an alarm alerts officials of the baby\u2019s location. The infant is retrieved within five minutes and taken in for a medical examination.<\/p>\n

Baby Box No. 205 was blessed Tuesday afternoon at Farmington\u2019s Fire Station 2, 3800 English Boulevard. It was the seventh box to be placed in New Mexico.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a good day for New Mexico,\u201d Kelsey said. \u201cI am fighting hard from Indiana for your women and your children of this state, and I will continue to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelsey said the baby boxes have saved two babies in the past five months in New Mexico. \u201cWe are just getting started,\u201d she added. \u201cYou know last year and the year before, New Mexico has kind of had a bad rap with babies being left in unsafe places. Some of them died.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelsey said that while one baby was left in a dumpster for six hours, a baby placed in a Safe Haven Baby Box will only stay in it for three minutes. \u201cThis box will save the lives of children. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a matter of if, it\u2019s a matter of when.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelsey shared a personal story of a 17-year-old girl, who in 1972 was brutally, sexually assaulted and survived. The teenager found out she was pregnant and had the baby, because abortion was not legal at the time. However, the baby girl was abandoned two hours after being born.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat child was me,\u201d Kelsey said. \u201cSo I stand on the front lines of this movement as one of these kids that wasn\u2019t lovingly and safely and legally and anonymously placed in a Safe Haven Baby Box by a parent that wanted me. But I\u2019ll tell you what this is my legacy, and I am their voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelsey created the baby boxes in 2020, and since the first was installed in Indiana, there has not been on abandonment resulting in the infant\u2019s death, according to Safe Haven Baby boxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis initiative has reaffirmed mothers in crisis can safely and securely surrender their newborns,\u201d Farmington Fire Chief Robert Sterrett said, as he opened the ceremony.<\/p>\n

\"The
The inside of a Safe Haven Baby Box from inside of Farmington Fire Station 2. Debra Mayeux\/Tri-City Record<\/span>Debra Mayeux<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Safe Haven Baby Box initiative was brought on Aug. 22 to the Farmington City Council by Farmington Realtor Bryan Crawford.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realize there was a big push to get them in New Mexico and the reality of it is there wasn\u2019t a massive push in Farmington,\u201d Crawford said, adding he called his friend and neighbor City Councilor Janis Jakino to share with her stories about child abandonment in the state and why a baby box for the community would be a good option.<\/p>\n

\u201cImmediately we started having conversations and there were some concerns that came up, but everybody, who had the opportunity to do the right thing along the way did the right thing,\u201d Crawford said.<\/p>\n

Jakino took the initiative to the Farmington City Council, and the council agreed to investigate the baby boxes, and then decided to install one at Fire Station 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are often accused in government of not working very quickly, but here we are on this beautiful day celebrating life and celebrating opportunities for people, who may not have had them before,\u201d Jakino said, noting it only took seven months from the first discussion to the baby box blessing.<\/p>\n

An abandoned infant, by definition, is one that is under the age of 90 days old and is left alone and not left in a safe place.<\/p>\n

Because abandonment is a problem across the U.S., safe haven laws have been created to allow for the safe abandonment of a child.<\/p>\n

New Mexico has a Safe Haven Law that allows a mother or father to \u201cwalk into any hospital, police station or fire station and abandon their child without fear\u201d of being charged with the crime of abandonment.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be covered by the law, you must notify somebody you are leaving the infant. You cannot leave your baby alone,\u201d according to guidelines found on the state\u2019s Child, Youth and Family Department website.<\/p>\n

The New Mexico State Legislature budgeted $330,000 for the placement of baby boxes in its 33 counties. Each county received $10,000, said New Mexico Sen. Bill Sharer of Farmington.<\/p>\n

Sharer said there was push back from some in the legislature on the funding of baby boxes, and he does not understand why. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty simple. This isn\u2019t stopping someone from having an abortion, it\u2019s simply giving them an option to do something different.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Rep. Rod Montoya of Farmington said the state\u2019s abortion law is so lenient it resembles abortion laws in North Korea and China. A big proponent of the baby boxes, Montoya said, \u201clife in New Mexico has not been valued.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montoya stated the devaluation of life can be found in crime and child abuse cases in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis gives women, who feel like they don\u2019t have another option, an option,\u201d Montoya said, noting the legality of safe abandonment. \u201cThis offers a solution for someone who just wants to do the right thing and just doesn\u2019t feel like they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The installation of the Safe Haven Baby Box was a total of $25,000, with $10,000 from the state and another $15,000 from private donors. There is an annual $300 fee paid by the city of Farmington to Safe Haven for maintenance of the box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Box initiative completed in seven months with state and donated funds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80630,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29102\/revisions\/80630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29102"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}