Good News: ‘It was a God thing for us’: Community shows generosity for teen girl

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - Sometimes a real long shot can become a reality. Not only has a local young lady beat tremendous odds, but due to some generosity in our community she has ended up winning much more than expected.

Allene Arands, 15, has always wanted to learn how to play the guitar.

“I’ve always come in here and seen the guitars and stuff and I was like ‘oh, that’s cool I want to be like that, like those rockstars on the TV,’” Allene Arands said.

A new guitar was just not in the family budget. But one day at the music store with her mother, she noticed a poster highlighting a raffle to win a brand new guitar.

The tickets were $10 a piece or $25 for four chances to win.

“I said ‘ooh mom, can we buy a raffle ticket?’” Allene Arands said.

Thania Arands, Allene Arands’ mother, recalled when she bought the raffle ticket for the guitar.

“I had about $15-$12 left and she kept going back and forth from me to the guitar and she goes ‘momma,’ and I said ‘well this is all I have left,’ so I said ‘I can only buy you one,’” Thania Arands said.

With a single ticket, some may call it simple luck or a stroke of good fortune, but out of hundreds of raffle tickets sold, Allene Arands’ ticket was the winner.

“They said they would call if we won it, and so my mom didn’t say anything about it so I just figured that they didn’t call. I think about one or two weeks later, she brings me here and some guy comes up to me and shakes my hand and they go ‘congratulations on the guitar’ and I was like, ‘what?’” Allene Arands said.

Her mother said this was a blessing.

“It only took one for her, so it was a God thing for us,” Thania Arands said.

As it turns out, the guitar was just the beginning. Other people found out about Allene Arands and pitched in with more resources.

“It came with a cord to plug it into an amplifier, which it didn’t come with an amplifier but they were very generous that they called and said ‘tomorrow if she doesn’t have one, I have one and I can give it to her,” Thania Arands said.

Like musical notes on a page, the story becomes more like a beautiful composition, all arranged just for Allene Arands.

Adding to the harmony, guitar lessons have also been donated to get her started.

“We’re really excited that she won the guitar. She seems real happy about it. She seems to like music a whole lot so we’d hate for her to have that real nice guitar and not be able to enjoy it so we want to give her some lessons. Between myself and Friends of Folgerberg we’re going to give her a month of free lessons,” said Jackie Anderson, a guitar instructor at Tarpley’s Music.

Allene Arands is already making plans to use her guitar.

“At church we have a little band so I was thinking maybe I can do that,” Allene Arands said.

Stories like this just put a song in your heart

“It has been a blessing all around,” Thania Arands said.

Now, that’s some good news!

Copyright 2022 KFDA. All rights reserved.