Over 300 babies saved by anti-infant abandonment organization
A grieving husband who founded an organization dedicated to preventing infant abandonment after the tragic death of his wife has managed to save over 300 lives since dedicating his life to serving women and their babies.
Nick Silverio founded A Safe Haven for Newborns, launched in Miami before expanding its reach to 67 counties in Florida.
The organization is an affiliate of Heartbeat International, a group with a worldwide network of more than 3,000 pro-life pregnancy centers. Silverio’s group works to prevent infant abandonment by offering counseling support to parents in overwhelming situations and ensuring women and their children have a safe place to stay.
In an interview with The Christian Post, Silverio said he started A Safe Haven for Newborns after his wife of over 30 years died in a car accident in 1999. While Silverio and his wife had no children, having lost two babies to miscarriages, the pair were godparents to 14 children and cared for their nieces and nephews.
One night, a few months after the accident, Silverio recalled flipping through a magazine, not paying any particular attention to what he was reading, until his finger suddenly stopped on a specific page. The article was about the crisis of infant abandonment, and Silverio said he felt a calling from God.
“And I believe at that moment, that was a message from God to me that this is what I should be doing for the rest of my life,” the organization’s founder said. “It was just a positive, really strong message.”
Since Silverio started A Safe Haven for Newborns in 2001 through the Gloria M. Silverio Foundation, a nonprofit named for his late wife, the organization has saved 382 lives. As the Safe Haven founder explained, the group has saved 372 lives in Florida, several more in other states, and one in Honduras.
According to Silverio, the primary source of the organization’s funding is its three annual fundraising events, which have featured women the group has helped in the past as speakers. In addition to its fundraising events, the group earns money through individual donors and grants.
“Our goal is to help a mom keep a baby, have a healthy baby, and have the baby at the hospital,” he said. “If we can get her support quite often, she will do that.”
“But if that’s not the case, she can choose direct adoption, where she would talk to the adoption agency and make that choice,” he continued. “Or she can utilize the Safe Haven program, which allows her to leave the baby at a hospital, no questions asked.”
According to Silverio, parents in need can contact Safe Haven for help through its website or its hotline services, which operate all day and every day of the week. The helpline services are available to English- and Spanish-speaking individuals.
If a mother is without a safe place to stay, Safe Haven will set her up in a motel or provide her with a referral for a maternity home. Safe Haven also works with a network of pregnancy centers through Heartbeat International and Heartbeat of Miami to connect parents with counseling services or information about free resources.
Moments before the interview with CP, Silverio said Safe Haven had received a call from the aunt of a 23-year-old girl who was two months pregnant. The Safe Haven founder said the group was working to find the girl a place to stay and connect her with a program that offers job training.
“We help a lot of women, lots of women, in whichever way we can,” Silverio said.
