HIGH SPRINGS — To save a 103-year-old theater, Janet Alligood said it took more than just seeing. It took believing.
When major movie companies announced 35-millimeter film — the type the Priest Theater in High Springs plays — would be discontinued by the end of the year, Alligood and her family knew they would need to upgrade to digital.
The $85,000 that the family set out to collect through an online Kickstarter campaign seemed like a looming obstacle.
“I was actually worried because I was keeping track of it,” said Gary Blanton, a 58-year-old High Springs resident who takes his grandchildren to see movies at the Priest.
The two-month campaign, which opened in early April, had collected $14,000, or about 16 percent of the goal, by the end of the first month.
Alligood said her family spread the vision for saving the theater against the odds, and it caught on.
“Faith is believing in something without being able to see it,” Alligood said. “We would tell people, ‘It’s going to happen. We’re going to make things happen.’”
During the fundraising process for the projector system, the Community Redevelopment Agency awarded the theater $40,000 for the year to restore the exterior and the foundation of the theater.
Jeff Stevens, an assistant web manager for UF Health, said he posted about the theater on Facebook and Twitter.
“I might have sent an email to a couple celebrities who just never responded,” he said, laughing.
Last week, the campaign needed about $19,000, Stevens said.
But donations started to pick up as the final days drew near.
On Saturday, Stevens said, someone made a $10,000 donation.
By 7 p.m. Monday — the closing time of the online campaign — the theater had raised $87,472, more than enough to upgrade the projector.
Alligood said she and her family would spend Monday evening in the place they fought so hard to save selling tickets to “Star Trek Into Darkness.”
"We're going to celebrate with our crowd," she said.
Contact Kelcee Griffis at kgriffis@alligator.org.
