FLORIDA – The Florida nonprofit Safe Haven for Newborns has now saved more than 400 infants since opening the agency over 20 years ago.
Nick Silverio, the founder of the nonprofit, said that milestone happened earlier this week.
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“Now we have 402 babies that have a future with loving families,” Silverio said.
Safe Haven for Newborns partners with fire stations statewide to offer designated safe spaces for individuals to drop off their unharmed baby with no questions asked.
It launched in 2001 a year after Florida’s Safe Haven Law passed.
“One night I am in my home all alone, not paying any attention, flipping through a magazine and my finger stopped on a page. And I was compelled to look at that page and was about the escalating crisis of infant abandonment in the world, and I believe that that was a message, at that moment, that’s what I should be doing devoting the rest of my life to trying to save babies,” Silverio said.
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The nonprofit’s record-breaking achievement comes a little more than a month after a Putnam County woman was charged with trying to sell her 18-month-old daughter to an employee at a Palatka business for $500.
The employee denied the offer and the mother walked away and left the child behind, who is now in foster care.
Since the child was more than a week old, it would not meet the Safe Haven law requirement which states:
“Parents can anonymously surrender infants up to seven days old and grants the parents immunity from criminal prosecution unless there is actual or suspected child abuse or neglect.”
Silverio wants people to know that their program provides additional resources.
“All of the services that we do provide we offer to everybody at no cost,” he said. “The help comes at the referrals for counseling, shelters, maternity homes, providing temporary motels, abuse issues, transportation services, and suicide calls, unfortunately,” Silverio said.
Safe Haven for Newborns also has a 24/7 hotline. That number is 877-767-2229.
Earlier this year, Florida Senate Bill 306 pushed to create a registry within community-based care lead agencies – like the Department of Child Families – for prospective adoptive parents. This would’ve allowed any babies surrendered under the Safe Haven Law to quickly find a home.
However, the bill did not move forward.