The Oak Ridge Fire Department’s Station 3 at 333 Tuskegee Dr. is now the site of Tennessee’s eighth Safe Haven Baby Box, as announced recently.
This will be the eighth baby box to be installed in the state of Tennessee, with the sixth one being located in East Tennessee. Other locations can be found throughout Middle and West Tennessee, including Hendersonville, Lawrenceburg, and Jackson.
Families in crisis can securely and confidentially leave their newborns in the boxes, which are temperature-controlled. These boxes are installed on the exterior walls of buildings and staffed round the clock, 24/7.
Members of the Oak Ridge Fire Department, Oak Ridge Police Department, Oak Ridge Public Works, and Oak Ridge Electric attended an opening ceremony for the box at Safe Haven. Among the attendees were Oak Ridge Mayor Warren Gooch, City Manager Randy Hemann, First United Methodist Church of Oak Ridge Associate Pastor Rev. Jenny Caughman, and Safe Haven CEO Monica Kelsey.
Baby Wyatt’s identity remains a mystery even after his body was discovered wrapped in a T-shirt on the shores of Melton Hill Lake in 2020. As a tribute to him, the Oak Ridge box was created.
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