Sesame Street turns to Kickstarter to fund autism book – TechCrunch

Julia is Sesame Street’s first autistic character and her mission is to make neuroatypical kids feel more comfortable and understand that there are kids out there just like them. She’s a sweet little muppet and now she’s getting her own Kickstarter campaign.

The campaign is raising $75,000 to produce content and a free book featuring Julia and her friends. They’ve just hit $10,000 in funding and it’s growing fast. $100 gets you a plush Julia doll and if they reach $150,000 they will print a paper copy of the new Julia book. The project aims to help reduce bullying of autistic children and the Sesame Street team will work with experts to create content and a book around Julia’s adventures.

From the team:

Julia’s television debut was greeted with hundreds of media stories and millions of social media impressions, but the biggest marker of our success was the overwhelming response from the autism community and beyond. Parents say their autistic children have more playdates because of Julia. Teachers report that their students are more inclusive in their play. One mother told us that she used the first Julia storybook to explain to her daughter that she, too, has autism. Her daughter responded, “So I’m amazing too, right?”

This is Sesame Street’s first Kickstarter and it’s really wonderful. This sort of community call-to-action is just what crowdfunding was born to do and it’s great to see the cash going to such a nice cause.