Jumping with Jam Over a New Children's Hospital

For most construction workers, putting up a building is just a job. But for a group of hard-hats in Chicago, it is much more than that. CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports their project is going up with concrete, steel, and plenty of "American Spirit."

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Inside a chilly construction site in downtown Chicago, hundreds of hard-hats are dancing at dawn because an 11-year-old girl is telling them to.

"Come on, stretch hard!" says Jamarielle Ransom-Marks.

She's warming up their bodies along with their hearts for the intense work of building the new Lurie Children's Hospital, a $1 billion project.

"Just to know that we're building this project for the kids, in the end, it just makes it that much more special for us," says Mortenson Power construction foreman Bobby Riggs.

"I know the guys who are working here are just so emotionally connected and impassioned about building this hospital," says Ann Lurie of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital.

"It feels really good for them to be cheering for me," says Ransom-Marks.

To submit an idea for The American Spirit send us an e-mail.

She used to dance inside the hospital. "I was diagnosed with cancer for the first time when I was about 8," she says.

For two years she battled leukemia and endured chemotherapy and radiation before getting a life saving stem-cell transplant.

"I think the worst part is not knowing if you're going to make it or not. And not knowing what season it is outside," says Ransom-Marks.

Children's Memorial Hospital

The goal here is to provide care with comfort for sick kids. So in addition to all the hi-tech medical equipment there will be family apartments, open-air balconies, and a soaring two-story indoor park.

"If you look out that window right there, all around you are big huge buildings and you can just see the world," says Ransom-Marks.

Her world just got a lot brighter.

"Jamarielle is two years cancer-free, just a few weeks ago."

"I think that they're really trying to work their hardest to get this done and make it as great and beautiful as it can be," says Ransom-Marks.

The work will be finished in two years, on time, on budget and jumping with Jam.