Teenager raises enough money to send 1,000 girls to see ‘A Wrinkle in Time’
Taylor Richardson is just 14 years old, but she’s already a pro at raising money and awareness in the cause of representation.
With A Wrinkle in Time set to hit theaters next weekend, Richardson took to the fundraising site GoFundMe and was able to raise $20,000 so that 1,000 girls could go see the movie.
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After all, as she told Good Morning America: “representation matters.”
“I wanted all girls, especially girls of color, to know they can be whatever they want to be when they grow up and also can struggle and have flaws and still be successful in life,” she explained.
The teenager also wrote on the GoFundMe page that she was excited to see Storm Reid playing the character of Meg in A Wrinkle in Time.
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“It has a female protagonist in a science fiction film,” she wrote of the film. “A brown girl front and center who looks like me in the role of Meg, a girl traveling to different planets and encountering beings and situations that I’d never seen a girl of color in.”
“Most impressive and importantly, it’s a fantasy film that is not about some white boys fighting evil, but about a black girl overcoming it.”
One impressive young woman
This isn’t Richardson’s first foray into fundraising, either. When she was just 9 years old, she put together a fundraiser to pull together enough money that she could go to space camp.
Then, last year, she brought in over $18,000 so that she could send 1,000 girls to multiple screenings of Hidden Figures in Jacksonville, Florida. After all, that movie was all about Black Girl Magic, and as a young Black girl interested in STEM fields, she knew how important it was to see heroes who looked like her.
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Now, Richardson wants to keep working to bring opportunities to girls of color.
“I want to continue my mission to bring diversity and gender equality to the STEM field, by running various projects and initiatives to make this happen,” she promised. “All funds raised will go towards projects, events, and scholarships to meet those ends.”
You go, Taylor.
