How It All Began The birth of Abandoned Babies© was inspired by the love of GOD and that love was conveyed and conceived into Simone’s heart. Simone Burns is the President and Founder of the Organization. August of 2002 is when it all began, and during this time, Simone began to conduct extensive research about abandoned newborn babies. The results were shocking! Babies abandoned by their birth mothers were in very dangerous and serious trouble. She uncovered documentation, about babies being abandoned in ways which made the common perception or idea of abandonment - a baby wrapped in a thick, soft blanket, nice and warm with a bottle of milk and a note with the baby’s name - simply to be just that. An idea! Newborn babies were being dumped in trashcans, airports, alleyways, behind stairwells even shoeboxes! Believe it or not, there is evidence that the remains of a baby boy were found in a shredder at a work place, and a baby was born and abandoned in Disney World. The article that Simone read this information from, reported that it was astonishingly NOT the first incident in which the woman who gave birth and abandoned her baby at Disney World has committed. Simone felt that if she did not do something about this problem, newborn babies would just die at unforeseeable rates. These children she thought, could have a chance to live and possibly a good and healthy life, but one thing she was sure of was to stop these babies from dying. Simone searched libraries, the Internet, spoke with people in schools, visited hospitals and the list goes on. Her initial research efforts were to find data about children in Nevada, but she was shocked again and again when she learned that abandonment is not only a serious issue here in Nevada, but all over the United States. Many times while doing her research, she cried real tears, only to imagine what a human being - a baby - had to endure just because he or she was born. Simone could almost hear how the newborn babies were crying and screaming in pain, lying helpless, hungry and cold. Some of these babies were sick, desperately needing medical attention. How much did these children have to suffer before they actually died? It hurts so much to learn that no one had answers to why a woman would do this to her child; how could she just walk away after carrying this child inside of her for months; feeling movements of this little person, a gift! Many questions she posed remained unanswered to this day. Most disappointingly, no one knew how many babies were actually being abandoned at any given time. The only information the data sources could provide was about the babies that were found, and still the numbers were conflicting with one another. With the limited information available, Simone decided to see if she could get answers by looking at the problem from a different angle, the birth mother. To do this she would ask questions such as: Did the birth mother try to get help? What could a female be experiencing that would make her abandon her child? Was the father apart of making this decision? What age group does abandonment affect most and what about the health of the female who gave birth? Dead-end! No information! Being very angry and disturbed by this, Simone found her quest for ‘why’ grew rapidly and stronger by the minute. She began to become more concerned to know all about abandonment because it brought all this pain and sorrow to her heart. During her research she could not find any programs that would solve newborn or child abandonment issues head on. There were no programs that aid birth mothers or prohibit them from committing abandonment. What her findings did convey, was that in some states, a law known as the ‘safe haven law’ was passed that addressed abandonment. This law allows a biological parent to give their child over to the state, by placing the child in the direct care of a hospital, fire station, police station, doctors office and any other emergency service provider, without the worry of prosecution. However, they are categorized as one who just put a bandage over the problem, because abandonment has increased drastically. Yet even more frustrating some states seem to want to simply ignore the problem as if it does not exist. Simone kept moving forward. Her heart remained sad for the lost babies and sometimes at night, she did not sleep. She was determined to find solutions that would stop this rapidly increasing epidemic. Simone noticed during her research, that abandonment could be termed as a poisonous seed. Once planted, which refers to the act, it grows and bears fruit to so many other social issues. For instance, if the mother and child survive, in most cases they will be dysfunctional. Both individuals become open to being abusive, neglectful, suicidal, drug and alcohol addicts, anger management candidates, perpetrators of abandonment, sufferers of low self-esteem and other psychological diagnoses. Simone felt such a conviction that she folded up her business, and dedicated her time fully to the cause. She made business cards, flyers, gave public service announcements and radio interviews, annd visited local businesses, churches, schools, hospitals and other organizations asking for volunteers and anyone who would help support the cause. Simone made up her mind to spend the rest of her life helping abandoned babies and has established Abandoned Babies© as a non-profit corporation on April 18th 2003. She received responses from her volunteer outreach efforts and held her first meeting on Saturday, August 31, 2003. When she found out that the Abandoned Babies© organization would have to be a 501C3 tax-exempt organization in order to be taken seriously, she began to file the paperwork with the Internal Revenue Service. In October of 2003, Abandoned Babies© was granted its tax-exempt status under section 509(c)3 and recognition of a Publicly Supported Charity. This meant so much to Simone and the volunteers, that you could not get them to sit down and remain quiet! Excitement was the aura of their volunteer meeting! The Organization has been literally knocking on doors and working very hard to be heard in the communities. Simone has been educating as many people as possible about abandonment and getting them as motivated as she is about eliminating it. Her dream and vision is that “No Child”, whether newborn or adolescent, will be abandoned. She vows to continue to advocate, fight and command the attention of the public in order to reach the Organizations’ goals. Simone Burns is a native New Yorker, and as of December 2000 is a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada. SINCE THE FOUNDING OF THE ORGANIZATION WE HAVE HAD A DIRECT IMPACT ON OVER 1000 CHILDREN AND FAMILES (PUBLIC APPEARANCES AND EVENTS), AN INDIRECT IMPACT OF OVER 160,000 CHILDREN AND FAMILES (RESIDENTS OF NEVADA), AND OVER 2,000,000 VISITORS (THROUGH THE GENEROUS GIFTS FROM T.V. AND RADIO STATIONS, BROCHURES, LETTERS, FLYERS, ADVERTISEMENT IN THE NEWSPAPERS, BUSINESSMEN/WOMEN, VISITORS AND RESIDENTS OF NEVADA). Since Oct. 2003, we have received over 200 calls related to child abandonment. Read Simone's story - President and Founder of Abandoned Babies©
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