Michala Riggle is a 14-year-old girl who started her own fundraiser and has raised over $300,000. At the age of ten with only $7.35 in her piggy bank Michala Riggle made it a goal to raise the $200,000 for Kosair Children’s Research Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. With a new treatment in the hospital they wanted it for Evan, Michala Riggle’s younger brother with autism. The problem was that it had not been tested yet and they needed this money to do that. This gave Michala Riggle the initiative to raise the money to help her brother.

All the doctors and nurses at the hospital thought it was not going to happen. Who would have thought a ten-year-old girl could raise $200,000 selling bracelets. She shocked everyone and within six short months Michala Riggle raised $300,000. The study was conducted and before they knew it Evan was getting the treatment. It is an IV of an amino acid called Glutathione that he receives every week and has really made a difference in Evan’s and his family’s lives.

Michala Riggle did not want to just stop there though, she wanted to do more. Not many people know that autism affects more people than cancer, diabetes, and aids combined, but receive the smallest amount of money for research. Michala Riggle wants to change this so her continuous fundraising has all ready made her a half a million dollars already. Her goal is to raise $300 million.

This money isn’t just for any plain old research, it is to build a new autism research and treatment center in her home town of Louisville, Kentucky. The name of this center will be “We Believe” and will be in the shape of her symbol peep. Michala Riggle believes “if you go into a game thinking you are going to lose, game over, you’ve already lost-You Gotta Believe!”

Everyone can help Michala Riggle raise this money. Michala Riggle has these people called peeps. You send her a message and she sends you back a kit to make bracelets. It is called the 30-day challenge. So you have to raise the money from the bracelets and send it back after 30 days. Wantagh is one of her peeps. Last year in the middle school during a research paper Michele Steinberg and I got the opportunity to research Michala Riggle. We loved the project so much we took it one step further with the help of Ms.Fragola and Ms.Hult. We got the chance to take the 30 day challenge and Skype with Michala Riggle. It was an amazing experience and who would have known a research paper could be so fun. I hope you can see that everyone can do something to make a difference.

Michala Riggle is an extraordinary girl that went above and beyond for her brother and all kids with autism. This girl just started off as a regular girl that loves soft ball and became a girl that is a role model to many. I think everyone should help people like this, it is a very worthy cause and people that help don’t get enough credit. This is how a plain old girl from Louisville, Kentucky made a difference in the world.