Murray welcomed a new rescue system for infants on Feb. 25 when a Safe Haven Baby Box was installed at the Murray Police Department.

While it took many hands to prepare, the Life House Care Center holds responsibility for the early stages of the box’s development.

The baby box in Murray “was 100% a Life House-initiated process,” said Life House Client Service Director Kili Hanes.

Stephanie Kelly, executive director of Life House, led the team in contacting people around the city, including the mayor, fire chief, police department and the Murray-Calloway County Hospital CEO, to determine the box’s placement. 

Capt. Andrew Wiggins, the Murray Police Department’s  Community Services Division officer, said the decision to place the baby box at the police station was made because of a consistent staff presence. He said sometimes firefighters are gone, and that may leave no one at the fire station.

Wiggins said the installation process required lots of testing, and those tests will be continual to ensure the box works properly.

“It’s something where you never want a failure,” he said. “It’s important that we’re always checking it.”

While the box has not been used yet, Hanes said the service it provides is assurance of safety.

“We don’t have an expectation on the frequency of use. It’s not typically that it’s used that frequently, but that it is meeting the needs of where someone is at, and presenting a safe surrender to someone without the hesitation for confrontation” Hanes said.

According to the Safe Haven mission statement, the boxes provide a secure and anonymous option for mothers to surrender their newborns.

“If the hesitation is someone seeing her, or even the guilt of what (it might) look like, it’s a place where they don’t have to encounter that,” Hanes said.

Wiggins said in the last 13 years, a newborn surrender through the police department has only occurred once, but this new system provides more security for potential surrenders.

“It’s beneficial for the community to have that option here,” he said. “(It’s) another avenue for mothers or parents together that needed a way to make sure the baby was taken care of (and) would have a safe place.”

Isabella Lamkin, the key spokesperson for Safe Haven and the person who began installation of baby boxes in Kentucky, was abandoned as a newborn outside the gates of an orphanage. Growing up, she was drawn to those with similar stories as her.

“I love children a lot, and I knew that babies cannot control their temperature like we can, and if they are left in unsafe environments for a long time, they have no chance of survival,” she said.

She began researching more about infant surrendering and realized Kentucky had no legislation surrounding the issue.

“I knew I wanted to change that,” Lamkin said.

She began a petition to enact legislation to protect infants from abandonment and contacted legislators about making a change. She also spoke to the founder of Safe Haven, which at the time had only placed boxes in Indiana.

Lamkin said within three months, the petition had a little under 2,000 signatures.

Legislation was passed and the Safe Infants Act was enacted, which “allows parents to leave babies younger than 30 days old at a designated safe place. No one will call the police or ask for your name.”

Now Lamkin works with Safe Haven and promotes the organization. 

“Any opportunity I get, I try to talk about it to others and spread awareness,” she said. “I think people should know about it.”

As of now, there are currently over 50 boxes in Kentucky, some of which are located in Paducah, Owensboro and Bowling Green. Lamkin said there have been four surrenders through the baby boxes in Kentucky so far, and the first one was in Bowling Green.

Hanes said it is a nationwide organization, and it has seen a lot of success, which is what made it stand out to Life House while they were researching baby boxes.

“Any community, regardless of size, could use it,” Hanes said.