East Texas’ first Safe Haven Baby Box now ready

PALESTINE — Safe Haven held a blessing ceremony for the first baby box in East Texas on Tuesday, providing an anonymous way for parents in crisis to surrender their children to first responders.

However the road to get the baby box at Fire Station 1 in Palestine took nearly a year according to our news partner KETK. Sue Tingle, an East Texas grandmother, said her now 2-year-old granddaughter was surrendered in a baby box in Indiana hours after her birth with her umbilical cord still attached. Tingle raised thousands of dollars in the past year to have the baby box installed, and on Tuesday, it became fully functional.

“Without Myah, there would be no Safe Haven box,” Tingle said.

Founder of Safe Haven Baby Box Monica Kelsey flew down to attend the special ceremony. Kelsey said she was abandoned in 1973 at the time when there was no Safe Haven laws in place.

“Its a blessing to be standing at a firehouse, blessing a box in a wall, that I don’t have to stand in a cemetery and bless a box going into the ground,” Kelsey said.

Tingle said the baby box is a blessing, not just for little Myah but for anyone who may need to use it in the Piney Woods.