#BlackGirlMagic: This 13-Year-Old Raised Money For Over 800 People To See ‘Hidden Figures’

 

Source: Dan MacMedan / Getty

A 13-year-old aspiring astronaut wants everyone to see Hidden Figures—so much so, she has helped over 800 folks view it for free.
According to The Huffington Post, Taylor Richardson was awarded the GoFundMe’s February “Hero of the Month” after raising $17,000 through the fundraising website for people throughout the nation to go see the Oscar-nominated movie.


She got the idea after attending a White House screening of Hidden Figures in December, inspired by the film’s portrayal of three real-life African-American female mathematicians— Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson— who helped send astronaut John Glenn to space.
“[Hidden Figures] shows me that women, and especially African-American women, can do anything a guy can do and anything a white male can do,” Richardson recently told Huff Po.
She didn’t expect for the project to grow so big. Her initial goal was to raise $2,600 to help young Black girls in Florida see the film. But since she launched the page, donations have kept coming in and she has expanded her screenings to other parts of the country.
Richardson has also increased access to the free screenings.
“We wanted to have other groups see not just what three Black women did, but just to know [of our] contributions,” Richardson’s mother said.

There’s been a big push over the past months to provide moviegoers with free tickets to this inspiring film, Entertainment Weekly pointed out. So far between the film’s stars including Octavia Spencer and Taraji P. Henson and other fundraising pages, there have been more than $120,000 and held screenings in 28 different states.