A small, but meaningful gesture

At the Plains volleyball game last Tuesday evening against Bigfork, a small gesture of kindness made a larger impact on

the Breast Cancer Awareness campaign that is taking place at sporting events in October.

A 50/50 was held with half of the money going to help with breast cancer research and the other half to a lucky individual who purchased a ticket that evening.

Randy Garrison was the announcer and called out the

winning number from a box of ticket stubs. Silence. Randy called it again and still nobody shouted out that they had the winning ticket.

While this was going on, Tristan Allen, 12, happened to be standing next to an open garbage can and saw a fairly long string of tickets someone had purchased and tossed while apparently leaving the game.

He pulled them out and asked his dad, Tyrel Allen, who has been the school guidance counselor there for nine years, what the number was? “I think this is the winning number,” Tyrel said as he took all of them up to Garrison for verification.

And it was! $123.50 had been claimed!

However, the Allen family had already decided that if they did win from the tickets they had purchased, they would just donate the money back for the good of the cause.

Which was done to the cheers of the crowd who wore pink shirts, ribbons and hats that evening for the festiveness of the fundraiser. Tristan wasn’t thrilled about wearing pink that evening, said his dad, but he was all on board with giving the money to the charity.

Chris Allen, Tristan’s grandfather, was with them at the game and shared that his grandson is an easy-going kid.

“He’s really into sports and has his head on right. Giving the money to the fundraiser is something he would have done on his own.”