Jenn Leggett is the proud parent of two boys, ages 3.5 and 1. Her older son was born in 2008 with a rare spinal deformity, Progressive Infantile Scoliosis. Thankfully, with help from the Infantile Scoliosis Outreach Program Jenn's family connected with one of only a handful of US doctors trained to cure her son's condition. After nearly a year spent in serial body casts, her little boy has a wonderful prognosis: he is cured and they expect him to stay that way!

During Cole's treatment, Jenn and the family wrote a wonderful children's book to help explain to young kids, their families, and friends about the treatment. They even got a professional illustrator to donate her time and talents to illustrate this beautiful story. Now, Jenn is utilizing RocketHub to crowdfund the initial publishing process and further support the Progressive Infantile Scoliosis cause.

I spoke with Jenn about her mission. What was the inspiration behind the super pro-social project you are currently running on RocketHub?  Why is it important to you?

As we say on our project page, it all started with our son. It was a very scary experience as we slowly realized that there was something seriously wrong with his spine. We addressed it with our pediatrician multiple times, but we just got brushed off. We really have both Google and the Infantile Scoliosis Outreach Program [http://infantilescoliosis.org/] (ISOP) to thank for pointing us in the right direction. Even after seeing a local specialist, we went from, “Don’t worry, its nothing,” to, “The best we can do is hold it off as long as we can until he gets years of painful surgery.” There’s a large active community of people with stories just like ours. A difficult road until finding one of the few doctors who do the correct treatment (Mehta casting).

Our son is cured now, but without ISOP, we would be in a very different situation. The treatment we got was very time sensitive, and a lot of people miss the window because they don’t get the information in time. Most pediatricians and family doctors don’t know about progressive infantile scoliosis, and many specialists don’t know the right treatment. We want to use the book as both fundraiser as well as spreading the word itself in a format that can just be fun, but with a message. Finally, when we told the support group about the book, many of them just wanted a copy because the story is written as a metaphor for the treatment in a cute way that can be explained easily to small children.

That's an inspiring story - getting the word out seems to be vital. How has your experience been as a crowdfunding pioneer in the world of positive art and publishing - how are your supporters responding?

RocketHub is amazing. To be honest, I was worried that this project would just never happen. ISOP is small, and does not have the resources to do it, even though it can hopefully provide them with a lot of funding when its made. Print on demand services are much to expensive to have any margin left. When we found RocketHub, we jumped on it!

The support is wonderful! We’ve gotten support from other families involved in ISOP, but also friends and total strangers. And we’re hoping to get a lot more so that we can reach our goal.

One thing that’s helped us, of course, is that there is a group out there that we’re making this book for, but we knew we couldn’t make it there with that support alone. We’re trying to spread the word to a larger audience, which is why we made sure the project should have a broader appeal. The story is a metaphor, but its very subtle and we knew it really needed to just be fun for any kid. To help it along, we’re trying to take advantage of social media and a little bribery ;)

We also have a couple of giveaways going on out there from people hoping for the project to succeed (no purchase necessary of course). You get entries by posting to Facebook, tweeting, or Fueling!

Giveaways:

http://www.earthycrunchymama.com/2011/07/cole-the-crooked-flower-giveaway/

http://blendedfamilyof5.blogspot.com/p/earthy-crunchy-mama-givebackgiveaway.html

Thank you Jenn, thank you Cole, and thank you to the whole Leggett family. You've warmed our hearts and inspired the whole RocketHub team and community. Help make this book into a reality.

-Vlad