A miracle on the Internet

I HAVE to share with you what happened to me today!!  It was a miracle!!  On Good Friday, no less!

The story actually begins a couple of years ago.  I went thrifting for props.  Vintage items are perfect for my day job over at dk photographic.  I was shopping at the Goodwill near my home and while I didn’t find any props, I did find a really cool box for slide storage.   This unique box would be perfect decor for my family room shelves AND would be a good place to store my family’s old slides so I snatched it up.

When I got home, I found that the box wasn’t empty.  It turned out there were two trays.  The visible one was empty.  The hidden tray was quite full.

https://www.instagram.com/p/u3amX9sTz8/?taken-by=dkphotographic

I love family photos.  And they don’t have to be of my family.  I love that moments get captured and kept forever so you can bet I looked at every one of those slides.  Seeing the photos of our local high school homecoming was pretty cool.  I was sure someone had accidentally donated their precious memories and couldn’t just get rid of them.  I held onto them and even called our school district to see if they could help me perform a miracle and return these photos.  As fascinated as the person on the other end of the phone was, they never followed up with me.  I made a few other calls but nothing panned out.  I put this beautiful box on my shelf.  It sat there until today.

Calling on the internet

For whatever reason, this afternoon I realized that the internet might be able to help me solve the mystery of who this family is and help me reunite the photos with their rightful owners.  I scanned a few dozen of the photos and created a facebook post.  And that’s where a miracle occurred—like this world is REALLY small kind of miracle.

I have this gorgeous, funny, smart and awesome friend named Stacey who I adore and who (wisely) is not addicted to social media.  She moved from our little town of Dublin to Southern California a few years ago.   Of all days to decide to see what’s going on in Facebook world, she chose today.   I wasn’t on her news feed.  She saw that I liked a mutual friend’s photo and clicked on my name to see what I’ve been up to.  She saw this post about the mystery family—a mere fourteen minutes after I posted it.  People…  SHE KNEW WHO IT WAS!!!  I told you…  It’s a miracle.

Can you believe it?!!  I mean.  Really…  What are the odds that the mystery family and I have a mutual friend?  She went to middle school with one of the young men in the photos.   His name is Tom.  She called me and we conspired about how to let this family know we have these photos.

Contacting the family

She found Tom on facebook.  She tagged friends who knew him.  I tagged him in the post and I sent him a message on LinkedIn with my phone number.  Within another 20 minutes, he knew about the photos and we were talking on the phone.  He was as blown away as we were.  Turns out, he moved from Dublin to California, too.  He only lives a short distance from where Stacey does now!!!

His parents had downsized from their family home and as we all know, downsizing means donating…  to Goodwill…  for me to find… and after 3.5 years….  to give back to them.  His parents are less than 3 miles from my home.  I am meeting them in a few days to return their slides to them.

This is just a handful of the nearly 300 slides contained in that tray.  I love the stories:  family get togethers, school functions, the sports, the love…  Honestly, it just really makes a heart happy. 

Sharing the good news

Apparently, a lot of people agree.  Our local news channel heard the story and shared it on their website.  How wonderful to see good news being shared.

http://nbc4i.com/2018/03/30/social-media-helps-find-owner-of-dozens-of-photos-found-in-box-bought-at-dublin-goodwill/

I hope this made your heart as happy as it did mine and have a wonderful weekend.  Happy Easter!

xoxo

Donna
I love having you on the road with me!

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