St. John 8th graders were the recipients of an anonymous donation last week. Someone in the community offered to pay for the entire class to view the Oscar nominated movie, “Hidden Figures,” the incredible untold story of three brilliant African-American women working at NASA in the early sixties who served as pivotal contributors to the advancement of space exploration.
We recently received this moving letter from a movie goer who attended the same showing:
Earlier this week, two friends and I went to the 10:30 AM screening of Hidden Figures…Instead of the usual crowd of a few frugal elders, the theater lobby was filled with 50-plus chattering 8th graders from St. Johns School…“Great,” I thought. “Who wants to see a serious film with a pack of short-attention early teenagers?” For all of these kids, Jim Crow, Nat Turner, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and John Glenn were all lumped together in the far distance of a history that seemed to be as unrelated to them as the voyage of the Mayflower.
I was wrong. After swarming the concession stand and loading up, the kids filed into the theater, sat down and seemed riveted to the movie for its entire run. They could not have been better patrons. And after the film, I asked a few of them what they were thinking and the responses were surprisingly well informed and thoughtful. I was, frankly, amazed.
But here’s the kicker. Why were they all there on a school day morning? It was because some anonymous person had bought tickets for the whole class so that they could see this film on the big screen, during its initial run.
Teddy Roosevelt famously said, when asked about the obligations of citizenship: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” And while we seem to be in a national tug-of-war at the moment between what government should or should not fund, what I love, here, is that some person out there, took the initiative to move forward and see that these kids got a morning out of school and were able to see this very important film. Whoever you are, you did what you could, with what you have, where you are….. and I thank you. I am inspired. You’ve challenged me.
