When a brand-new “baby box” was installed this summer at a fire station in O’Fallon, Missouri, supporters knew it could someday save a life. Few expected that moment to come so quickly.

Fewer than 60 days after the box was blessed and inaugurated at O’Fallon Fire Protection District Station 3, first responders safely recovered a healthy newborn child, placed there by the mother, on the morning of Sept. 13. 

The O’Fallon box was funded by Knights of Columbus Council 2269. For Grand Knight Tom Zangriles, the news of the surrender was both startling and profoundly moving.

“It gave me chills,” Zangriles told the Register. “No one was expecting it to be that quick. For it to be that soon really caught us all off guard — in a good way.”

Firefighters recovered the baby from the box in under a minute, and the child was transported to the nearest hospital for evaluation. The sex of the baby — who is being cared for by a foster family — was not revealed due to privacy concerns. 

The O’Fallon installation is one of more than 300 baby boxes nationwide operated by Safe Haven Baby Boxes, an Indiana-based nonprofit founded by Monica Kelsey. The devices, which resemble a wall-mounted safe on the exterior of a building, provide mothers the option to legally, anonymously and permanently surrender their newborns. Once the door is shut, a climate-controlled bassinet keeps the baby safe until trained personnel open the box from inside the building.

At a Sept. 22 press conference, Kelsey commended the anonymous O’Fallon mother for her courageous choice. Infant abandonment remains a pervasive problem in the U.S., Kelsey said, noting that an estimated three to four babies are illegally abandoned each day; just this week, in Austin, Texas, a newborn was found alive abandoned in a dumpster.

“This baby [in O’Fallon] was not abandoned,” she stressed. “This child was lovingly, legally, anonymously and safely surrendered.”

Kelsey thanked the local Knights of Columbus for supporting the project and added that the Knights have been “our No. 1 supporters throughout the country, so it’s no surprise that you’re rocking it in Missouri.”

The idea for the O’Fallon project surfaced about 15 months ago, Zangriles explained, when a fire department employee approached the Knights asking if they would be interested in helping to fund a baby box for the suburban community northwest of St. Louis. The St. Louis area already has several baby boxes, the first one having been installed in the southern suburb of Mehlville in August 2023. 

Zangriles recalled that his council quickly recognized the alignment of this project with the Knight’s charitable mission. 

“This is right in our wheelhouse — protecting the unborn and mothers in need,” he said.

The council raised about $15,000 to cover the cost of the baby box, relying on charitable funds they had in reserve and a 2024 trivia-night fundraiser. After approvals and testing were complete, the box was installed in July 2025. 

For Zangriles, he says it is incredible to look back at the O’Fallon baby-box project and realize that a mere 15 months have elapsed from the inception of the idea to the successful rescue of a baby. 

“I applaud the young mother who had the courage to surrender her baby. It’s not an easy decision to make,” he said. 

Laws authorizing “baby boxes” have spread to nearly half of U.S. states since the first box was installed in Indiana a decade ago, and Safe Haven says more than 60 newborns have been saved so far by parents using the devices. A handful of states, including New York and Illinois, are currently considering legislation to newly authorize baby boxes. 

Every U.S. state has laws that allow mothers to safely surrender their newborn children without being prosecuted, though a majority require the surrender to be done face-to-face at a hospital, fire station, police station or similar location.

According to Safe Haven, a total of 23 U.S. states currently allow mothers to surrender their children anonymously using baby boxes — for its part, Missouri only legalized the practice beginning in 2022. Laws differ slightly for each state, but in Missouri’s case, newborns up to 90 days old can be surrendered at the boxes. 

Zangriles said he thinks Knights councils nationwide would do well to consider taking on baby-box projects as an extension of their mission. He said his Knights council will strongly consider funding more baby boxes in the future when the opportunity arises; a new law that took effect this summer in Missouri created a $250,000 fund to match private donations to create more boxes.

Zangriles said, “[Other councils] will realize this is an initiative that is in such alignment with what we’re about, it really becomes a no-brainer.”