Striking the right notes to find an instrument for a foster child

Santina Espinosa stepped outside her foster home Wednesday morning and spotted her Christmas surprise in the driveway, sporting a big red bow.

“Oh, my god,” Santina, 17, said, her voice warbling with emotion.

It was an upright bass — and it was all hers.

She dreams of one day working in music therapy, and playing the bass was a way to work toward that dream and relieve stress. She had access to one at the traditional school she was attending, but when she had to change schools, she lost that access.

When Jennifer White, founder of ICT SOS, a local nonprofit organization that combats human trafficking, learned of Santina’s situation, she reached out to her stable of social media contacts.

“OK, y'all know we get some odd requests around here for things our kiddos need to be successful. Here's the latest from one of our partners,” White posted on her Facebook page last week.

She described Santina’s situation and closed with: “Musician friends- any help on this one?”

Later that same day, she spoke at a Wichita Bar Association Luncheon and mentioned the need to the group.

Within two days, people had found an upright bass available in Tulsa and donated enough money to buy it. A musician drove down to Oklahoma to check out the instrument and pay for it.

So much money was donated that what was left over paid for some music lessons for Santina.

“You all are AMAZING,” White wrote in a followup Facebook post. “Who else but Wichitans could I ask for something as outrageous as an upright bass the week before Christmas and know that you would pull it off?”

Court Appointed Special Advocates of Sedgwick County arranged to have the upright bass delivered to Santina on Wednesday.

As she recovered from her initial surprise, Santina walked down to the driveway and tenderly stroked the bass’s fingerboard.

“It made me so excited,” she said later.

White has become a local legend for her ability to find one thing or another when a need arises.

“It’s amazing,” said Diana Schunn, program manager for the Child Advocacy Center of Sedgwick County. “It’s a tremendous help for those of us in the service agencies.

“She’s done a fabulous job of connecting on social media,” Schunn said. “The people who join her and follow her really have an interest in making Wichita a great place to live. When she expresses a need, people are interested in seeing what they can do to meet that need.”

The upright bass is just the latest example of that, Schunn said. The result was a dream Christmas gift for a young woman in need.

“It’s one of the good days,” said Ashley Thorne, advocacy director for CASA. “We usually don’t have days like this.”

This story was originally published December 20, 2017 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Striking the right notes to find an instrument for a foster child."