Nineteen lucky young lady attendees of Mariposa County High School have received free passes to the movie, “Hidden Figures”, thanks to donations from community members.

(Pictured): Biologist Cheryl Johnson hands movie passes to Mariposa High physics teacher Kim Monson.

Progressive Mariposans, a group of men and women who want to build a bridge to the future by advocating for patriotic rights to opportunities and freedoms, set their first goal on helping the students.

The hit movie, “Hidden Figures” is about a group of African American women who worked as “human computers” for NASA and provided the mathematical computations that enabled astronauts to conduct their first missions into space. They were also instrumental in programming and making the first IBM computers work for NASA. The film also depicts the legal fight one woman had to go through to attend engineering classes, even after the Supreme Court ruled that schools should be integrated.

Because of a desire to encourage young ladies to pursue studies in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), the community members donated funds for viewing this inspiring film. For decades women were discouraged from entering these fields and even today there are few leaders for young ladies to emulate. Progressive Mariposans want all students to know they can excel in any field and nobody can hold them back.

Mariposa High physics teacher Kim Monson facilitated the donation of the tickets to the students.