Governor Andy Beshear (D) recently signed into law House Bill 155, a measure allowing parents who feel compelled to give up their newborn to, without fear of punishment, place the child in the climate-controlled box. An alarm then sounds to alert firefighters that a baby has been surrendered.
The Okolona Fire Station 1 in Louisville, where Mark Little serves as fire chief, is where the state's first box has been installed.
"Okolona, along with a couple of our neighboring departments, had responded to incidents where babies had been discarded or placed in garbage cans or dumpsters," Little shares. "That's really disheartening for our people, and it creates a mental aspect for them as well."
So fire personnel in the unit decided to raise the needed funds among themselves. But then a local organization learned of their plan.
"There's a group called Zonta Club of Louisville. They actually came together and funded our first box here at Okolona," the fire chief reports. "There was a little girl, her name is Isabella Lamkin, and she was the primary fundraiser."
Isabella, who is now 16 years old, had a personal stake in the project, as she was abandoned on the steps of an orphanage when she was less than two days old.
Image above is of a Safe Haven Baby Box drop-off in Benton, Arkansas
