El Dorado-based nonprofit Hannah Pregnancy Center has teamed with the the city of El Dorado and the El Dorado Fire Department to soon offer a unique service to the local region.
A Safe Haven baby box will be installed at EFD Station 2, located at 1400 E. Hillsboro.
The box requires installation and training for EFD members and is not yet operational; HPC Executive Director Paula Williams said Hannah Pregnancy Center and the fire department will hold a dedication ceremony to announce the beginning of the service.
The baby box has been purchased and is now in the hands of the fire department, something Williams said her organization achieved through multi-faceted fundraising.
“We’ve finished with fundraising. The cost is $10,000. We were able to get help through a grant from Arkansas Right to Life and individual donors to be able to raise the $10,000 we needed. The Knights of Columbus did a fundraiser as well and some of the money they raised will go towards advertising about the box. So, we have the box paid for, the contract with the city has been signed and it’s all a-go,” Williams said.
Arkansas’ Safe Haven Law states that “a parent [may] bring a child, 30 days old or younger to an employee at any hospital emergency room, law enforcement agency, fire department that is staffed 24 hours a day, or a designated newborn safety device (often called a baby box) location anonymously and without facing prosecution for endangering or abandoning a child.”
The Safe Haven box is valuable, in part, by adding that element of anonymity for the mother, Williams said.
The box will be installed in a prominent exterior location at EFD Station 2 and is temperature-controlled, padded and complete with a bassinet on the interior. A series of alarms notify 911 dispatch immediately when the box is used.
“The process of it working is … if a mother comes and wants to surrender her baby, she opens the box and an alarm goes off to dispatch to notify them the box is activated. When she places the baby in the bassinet a second alarm goes off, and when she closes it a third alarm goes off. Once it’s closed, it cannot be reopened from the outside. The fire department then comes in, assesses the baby and takes the baby to the hospital,” Williams said.
The baby will then be turned over to the Department of Human Services.
EFD Chief Chad Mosby said his department is excited to offer the new service to El Dorado and the region in general.
“Our end goal, I think, is to have people know about this service all over the region,” Mosby said.
Mosby said the Conway Fire Department just dedicated their own box last week and that the Benton Fire Department saw their box used to surrender a baby in May 2020.
Williams said that although El Dorado’s baby box will be the seventh or eighth in the state, it will be the first to service south Arkansas.
Williams said the Hannah Pregnancy Center plans to widely advertise when the box is installed and available for use.
For more on Hannah Pregnancy Center's discussions with the El Dorado City Council about the Safe Haven box, see here .