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Social media is saving baby Jaeli
By Justin Goldsborough | November 4th, 2009
#Jaeli is one unique baby. My wife, Maggie, and I don’t have kids yet (just two Irish setter pups), but talk to anyone who’s expecting and your likely to hear “We just hope he’s/she’s healthy.”
So imagine being Jaeli’s mom, Brandy Brow, who is faced with the fact that her newborn daughter is struggling keep down any sort of formula. In fact, Jaeli needs human breast milk in order to survive because she has violent allergic reactions to all formula types. Now imagine that your daughter’s disease is so rare that the doctors don’t have a specific name for it, so they start calling it “Jaeli’s Syndrome.”
This is what Brandy has been dealing with for the past month or so since Jaeli was born. I’m sure she stressed, and cried, and prayed, but she also told her daughter’s story through Facebook and other social media channels. And Angela England was listening.
I remember the day last month when I was watching football on Sunday and got a DM from Angela asking if I’d heard about Jaeli. I hadn’t, but when I got home and read Angela’s account I was amazed by two things – that this newborn baby was in a fight for her life and that Angela had already been blogging and tweeting about Jaeli and had set up a paypal account for people to donate to the cause.
Since then, we created a Facebook cause for Jaeli and have more than 1,200 members join who have helped raise over $1,000 dollars. Combine that with the Paypal donations Angela has collected and contributions coming from several different sources directly to the Mother’s Milk Bank of Ohio and the overall total raised for baby Jaeli currently sits at more than $22,000!
Angela and Brandy have been very active in their crusade to raise awareness and I continue to be amazed at the generosity people show by getting involved and contributing to this baby they’ve never even met. My cousin, who recently had a baby, even contacted me via Facebook the night I shared Jaeli’s story and offered to donate her own breast milk to the cause. I continue to be amazed by peoples’ graciousness. The “help gene” on display again.
These days, Jaeli is doing well and Brandy even posted on Facebook the other day that her daughter laughed for the first time.
So what’s left to do…a lot, actually. Brandy has safe breast milk for Jaeli for a while. But she’ll likely continue to need human breast milk for at least a few more months and there are other babies in need as well.
Please help us help Jaeli and other newborns who have specific breast milk needs. Join the cause, make a donation, share her story, ask an organization to give its support. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Jaeli is one unique baby and someday we want to hear about her being a unique kid, teen-ager and adult. Do you have other ideas on how we can help? Or do you know another Jaeli who needs support? What causes are you close to?
National Blog Posting Month 30 Causes in 30 Days
- Apartment Fund for Daniela’s Family (@davearmano)
- 12for12k (@dannybrown)
- #Iamsovereign Twitter Birthday Project (@jasonstoddard)
- Jaeli’s Syndrome (@AngEngland and @BrandyBrow)
November 6th, 2009 at 7:02 am
Lovely recap! I love it. I figured out that $22k is about 19 weeks worth of milk and with Jaeli still hovering under 10 pounds body weight, her need for this healthy milk could be prolonged.
I also want to reiterate here that anything ‘leftover’ in Jaeli’s account with the milk bank at the end of her need will be given, per Brandy’s direction, back to the milk bank to help another “Jaeli”. Brandy said NO mother should feel that helpless.
I am amazed and astounded at the generous and heartwarming response from everyone. Another $1,000 or so has come in via Paypal since the update I posted, and Georgia said at least 50 envelopes with money for Jaeli have come in to the milk bank in the last month.
Also - if you didn’t notice, a Christian artist is donating proceed from ringtone downloads and iTune sales of TWO of her songs for Jaeli’s cause! Details are a couple posts down on http://angengland.com
Thank you for all you did to help spread the word!
Blessings,
Angela <
November 6th, 2009 at 7:34 am
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November 17th, 2009 at 6:22 am
I have been following Jaeli’s story since it was featured on aol. You mention a facebook page for Jaeli, how do I find it? I’ve tried a couple different things and no luck so far.
November 17th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Hi Rachel. Here is a link to baby Jaeli’s cause, Jaeli’s Syndrome: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/371658/30240352?m=e56504ed