Baby boxes are a big deal. In case you don’t yet know what they are, they’re a little drop-off station on the side of a building to safely and discreetly drop off a baby that, for whatever reason, cannot be taken care of.
No questions are asked and no reasons are necessary. People can either drive up or walk up and drop the babies off into the box, which is similar to a money box at the side of a drive-up bank. Kinda.
For the last couple of years, these baby boxes have taken in so many newborns who could not be raised by their parents, and may have otherwise been abandoned. Surprisingly, though, these baby boxes are not cheap. It costs around $10,000 to have one installed on the side of a building.
19-year-old Hunter Wart of Seymour, Indiana, knows all about that cost. But he really wanted to help put one of these in the city. So he did a lot of mowing lawns and scrapping metal to raise enough money for one. It was part of his senior project at Columbus North High School.
Says Hunter’s mom, Julia: “It was a lot of hard work. A lot of blood, sweat and tears.”
Finally, all that hard work paid off, and Hunter was able to secure a baby box for one of the fire department stations in the city. And it wasn’t long after that a little baby girl was dropped off in the box. Within a minute of her arrival, an alarm sounded and someone at the station took care of the situation. It was determined she was only about an hour old. An ambulance soon after took the little baby to the hospital for extended care.
Said fire chief Brad Lucas: “We are ecstatic that the system was used. It worked perfect, exactly how it was designed to work.”
Hunter was honored by his city for working so hard to get the baby box.
