Hero Teen Has Raised Enough Money to Send 1,000 Girls to See A Wrinkle In Time

Taylor Richardson gained viral fame for raising enough money on GoFundMe to send herself to space camp when she was 9 years-old, in pursuit of her dream of working in STEM. Five years later, she’s still using her campaign skills, this time to send girls to see A Wrinkle In Time.

In an interview with Good Morning America, Richardson said her motivation was to make sure as many girls as possible, especially young women of color, would see themselves represented on screen as they are in Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of the Madeleine L’Engle novel:

“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,” Taylor said.

On her GoFundMe page for the event, Richardson wrote that she was especially excited about this movie because of its genre, writing that it’s a fantasy film “that is not about some white boys fighting evil, but about a black girl overcoming it.”

The fundraiser initially had a goal of $15,000 that would cover tickets, refreshments, chaperone tickets, and the cost of a copy of the book for the first 100 girls. She has raised over $21,000 as of Thursday, and plans to donate anything extra from the fundraiser to the Astronaut StarBright Space Camp scholarship. Richardson also raised $18,000 in 2017 to host showings of Hidden Figures for girls in her hometown of Jacksonville, Florida.

Her mother, Latonja Richardson, gives her some help in the process, but says her daughter’s success is from her own “drive and determination,” adding, “She takes time to pay it forward not just to girls that look like her but all kinds of kids all around the world, it’s mind-blowing.”