Cops' Generous Gift for Teen After Her Home Is Robbed
Leonela Osuna’s quinceañera savings may have vanished but the California teen received a lot more than money when her local police stepped up to fix things. (Photo: Stanislaus County Sheriff’s K-9 Association/Facebook).
When officers from the Stanislaus County sheriff’s department reported to 14-year-old Leonela Osuna’s Modesto, Calif. home on Tuesday they didn’t just answer the call to try and solve a burglary. They answered the call to help.
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Her home had been robbed of laptops, jewelry and money. “This family lost a lot,” Deputy Barry Ballance tells Yahoo Parenting. The burglar, or burglars, still at large — who had kicked in the door of her house while the family was at school and work — even took all of the $2,000 that the teen had been saving for her quinceañera. Every penny of the funds that Osuna had been painstakingly saving to pay for a dress and hall rental for her August 8 ceremony, vanished.
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And quinceañeras aren’t cheap. The milestone event for many Latin American families is part 15th birthday bash, part religious rite, and part debutante ball — complete with formal gowns, dazzling tiaras, dinner, dancing, a cake, and a court of 14 attendants in coordinating outfits who help the honoree make her social debut.
By one estimate, the Washington Post reports that 25 percent of the approximately 400,000 girls of Latin American heritage, participate in Quinceañeras.
So when the authorities discovered that money for Osuna’s festivities had been snatched from her dresser drawer, they stepped up.
Ballance withdrew $500 from his K-9 unit’s funds and promptly presented it to the teen. “When I handed her the money, both mother and daughter started crying,” he tells The Modesto Bee. Other officers and departments donated as well.
“They’ve been pitching in with money to help,” Osuna tells local news station KTXL. “It makes a big difference.” Osuna tells KTXL the generous donations have changed her perspective about police officers: “I appreciate [them] now that I know they would do that for someone.”
The family is so grateful, they’ve extended an invitation to Ballance to attend Osuna’s Quinceañera, which he is respectfully declining.
“I really do appreciate the invitation,” he tells Yahoo Parenting. “But I don’t know how well a deputy would fit in at a teenager’s party.”
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