Mississippi’s 12th Safe Haven baby box unveiled, blessed in Picayune

• The baby boxes provide parents in distress with an option to anonymously surrender their infant in hopes of finding their child a new home.

To further support access and use of Mississippi’s Safe Haven law, the 12th baby box has been installed in Picayune. 

On Wednesday, local and state officials gathered outside of the Picayune Fire Department central fire station to officially unveil and bless the newly installed Safe Haven baby box in Pearl River County. 

Installed on the side of the fire station that faces Loftin Avenue, the baby box now offers an anonymous method for parents in distress to give their baby a new home. 

What is the Safe Haven baby box?

Caitlin Kelly with Safe Haven Baby Boxes said the baby box system is the only one in the nation that provides an anonymous method for turning over a newborn. 

“This box offers no shame, no blame and no names,” Kelly said.

It is an outward facing box installed on the side of emergency services buildings that operate 24 hours a game, 7 days a week. The boxes are climate controlled and connected to a series of alarms to alert personnel inside the facility that a baby has been surrendered.

Communities interested in installing their own baby box should plan to raise about $20,000, Kelly said. That amount exceeds the cost of the box but covers expenses such as signage and other needs.

How the boxes work

When a mother surrenders her child through the baby box, the system has three fail safe alarms with a delay to provide the mother enough time to leave and remain anonymous while also alerting personnel to the presence of the baby.

Once the child has been retrieved from the box by facility personnel, the child is brought to a hospital for a wellness check before moving into state custody and put up for adoption, said Kelly. She added that the child will not be categorized as a foster child but rather a child available for immediate adoption. 

Termination of parental rights typically takes between 45 to 72 days, and a baby has to be cared for within the adoptive home for six months before the adoption process is complete. 

“The key is for the baby to go straight into an adoptive home, not a foster home situation,” Kelly said.

If a mother changes her mind about giving up the infant, they have a grace period that varies by state, typically between 30 to 45 days. In Mississippi that timeframe is 45 days, according to Child Welfare Information Gateway. 

Why Picayune?

Picayune’s path to establishing a Safe Haven baby box has been years in the making.

In 1992 a Picayune area farmer looking for food for his flock in the dumpster behind what was then Mr. Gatti’s Pizza found a deceased newborn in a bag. The investigation into the death went cold for decades until the Picayune Police Department revived it in 2021 using DNA evidence to identify the parents, which were deemed responsible for the child’s death. The parents were arrested for murder two years later. 

“I want to thank our Picayune Police Department for never giving up on that case,” State Senator Angela Hill (R) said after recalling the story to the audience at the baby box blessing.

Hill said she used that story on the floor of the Mississippi Senate to argue for the passage of a bill that extended the number of days a parent could surrender a child from its initial time of three to seven days. 

The state senator from Pearl River County cited former Fire Chief Keith Brown as the driving force to get the bill passed.

“He said, ‘Angela, we need to expand that law.’ He said, ‘We need to give women a longer opportunity and more places to be able to safely drop that baby off,'” Hill said.

Brown said he approached Hill after he was challenged by a Florida-based fire chief during a Southeastern Fire Chiefs meeting to establish at least one baby box. While the effort to actually have a box installed took a number of years, Brown believes it will be beneficial now that it has come to fruition. 

“If we save one life it’s well worth it,” Brown said. “Like it’s already been said, I hope we don’t have to use it but if we can save one life it’s worth every piece of effort that was put into it.”

Hill also gave credit to fellow Pearl River County lawmaker State Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes (R) for helping get the time extension bill passed. 

Baby boxes became legal options to surrender a child in Mississippi in 2023, Hill noted. Other options for where a parent can surrender a child include a hospital, ambulance service station, or any other emergency medical service provider that is open 24 hours a day.

Installation of the box

Fundraising to pay for Picayune’s baby box was spearheaded by Pearl River County Republican Women President Debbie Benoit, with help from the Greater Picayune Area Chamber of Commerce Leadership Class of 2026. Donations came from dozens of businesses, churches, civic organizations and private donors. 

“This community, not only did they say, ‘Here’s a check,’ they said, ‘What more can I do? How much more can I give? Can I double what’s given?'” Benoit said.

Picayune Fire Chief Josh Abercrombie said the county Republican Women leader signed the first contract with the city to get the box installed, followed by the Picayune Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Class that landed on the same idea for their class project.

Jennifer Boehn, a participant of the 2026 Leadership Class, said she pitched the idea. She saw it as a fitting project since she is the Executive Director of Hope Haven, an organization that provides a safe space for local law enforcement and Child Protective Services to conduct forensic interviews as part of child abuse case investigations. 

“But one of the other missions that we have is prevention, and we really felt like supporting the baby box is a way that we can prevent child abuse from happening and also child fatalities,” Bohen said.

Benoit said the community fundraiser for Picayune’s baby box tripled the $20,000 goal.

Growing across the state and nationwide 

Across the nation there are now 479 Safe Haven baby boxes, through which 87 babies have been surrendered since 2016, Kelly said. Three of the 87 babies surrendered through the boxes were in Mississippi.

“They are all healthy, happy and adopted,” Kelly said.

A majority of the growth in the number of boxes across the nation has occurred within the last four to five years. 

“My husband and I spearheaded the legislation change in Mississippi in 2023, and when I started talking about boxes in 2022 there were only 121 boxes in the nation,” Kelly described. 

The first box installed in the U.S. was in Indiana in 2016. Mississippi was the first southern state to have a baby box installed, which was placed in Long Beach in 2023, Kelly said.

In addition to the boxes in Picayune and Long Beach, a baby box can be found in the cities of Waveland, Madison, Senatobia, Booneville, Tupelo, Mendenhall, Collins and Hattiesburg. Two more boxes are located in Gulfport.

The Safe Haven Baby Boxes organization also offers a 24-hour hotline that has facilitated more than 250 face-to-face surrenders and helped 9,000 families in other ways.

“It’s such a major component of our organization, it really is. We have more face-to-face surrenders over the hotline,” Kelly said.