An amateur photographer whose $3,700 camera was accidentally donated to Goodwill wound up with a fairytale ending after her heartfelt plea on TikTok received over a million views.
“I’m a pretty radical optimist always,” Kelsie Lee, 23, of San Diego, California, told Fox News Digital.
“So I was always hoping that something cool was going to happen out of this. It was ‘everything happens for a reason’ kind of energy. I knew there had to be something greater,” she added.
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Lee, who works for With My Own Two Hands, a Laguna Beach-based charity that helps provide clean water to East Africa, was visiting her family in Anthem, Arizona.
She brought along her new camera — a Canon R6 — to take photos of her loved ones.
“Since I was really little, I’ve always had my hands on some kind of camera,” Lee said.
“I’ve always loved photography and videography. And I love, love, love taking photos of people in love. I’ve always known that I’ve wanted to sort of grow it more into a little side hustle.”
Lee said that years ago, she started saving up to buy a camera for herself. She decided on a Canon with a professional-grade lens that cost her $3,700.
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When Lee and her family went into a restaurant for dinner, Lee decided to leave her camera in the car, but carefully hid it from view in a cardboard box that was in the back, she said.
After coming home from dinner, Lee went to bed without giving the camera another thought — until the next day.
“When I finally realized that I left my camera in the car, I was kicking myself,” Lee said.
“I was so mad at myself for leaving my baby in the Arizona heat. But little did I realize that something much worse had happened.”
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When Lee went into her mom’s car to retrieve the camera, the box wasn’t there.
“I ran in the house frantic, screaming,” Lee said. “I was freaking out. My mom said, ‘I just dropped that box off at Goodwill, literally today.'”
They got in the car and headed to Goodwill.
Lee said she was never upset with her mom for accidentally donating the camera.
“My mom is the best person on the planet, and I already could see in her face how horrible she felt,” Lee said, adding that they were “praying” the camera would be at the store.
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As it turned out, the camera had already been placed on the shelf and purchased — all in the span of about three hours, according to Lee.
“So we had just missed it by an hour,” Lee said.
“And the craziest thing about it: they sold this $3,700 camera — a brand new model from Canon — for $70. My stomach sunk, and I just fell to the ground of the Goodwill and started bawling my eyeballs out.”
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But then Lee realized she had lost something even more valuable — an SD card that contained all the photo memories she had taken over the first few months of owning the camera — many of which included memories captures during family trips.
Lee and her mom got back in the car. She said her “brain was on overdrive” trying to think of all the ways to get the camera back.
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They posted an announcement on a community Facebook group — then Lee decided to reach out to the TikTok community with her frantic plea and a $500 reward.
“I was desperate to try absolutely anything,” Lee said.
“So I went in my backyard, and still had not composed myself because I was just still in shock, and took the video. Thirty minutes later I pulled up my phone and it’s already starting to blow up.”
Lee said she was especially blown away by the community of photographers and videographers from around the world who “have each other’s backs.”
She said, “It is just full of people that want to create art and collect moments and document life in the coolest way possible.”
“And they all really show up for each other. So it was a lot of photographers commenting, ‘Oh my gosh, I have this exact camera’ [or] ‘I can’t imagine what this would feel like, but hoping that you get it back.’”
A few professional photographers with “huge followings” also reached out offering Lee one of their old cameras or help to her buy a new one, Lee said.
“I still am so overwhelmed with how incredible people were,” Lee added.
But it was a story on a local news channel that ended up reuniting Lee with the couple who purchased the camera.
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Lee said the couple messaged her on Instagram and sent her photos of the camera they had just purchased.
“I knew right away because of the neck strap that was on it,” Lee said.
The couple even drove the camera down from Prescott, Arizona, to return it.
“There’s no way that if my camera landed in the hands of anybody else, would it have been returned to me,” Lee said.
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She went on, “These people truly went above and beyond. They got here and they didn’t mention the reward money at all. They were just so excited to give it back to me.”
Lee said the couple are both amateur photographers, and they shared that the wife was going through health issues.
Lee said finding the camera at Goodwill for such a great price was a “bright light” as they were “down on their luck.”
“I realized how much it meant for them to have this camera,” Lee said.
So Lee said she returned to TikTok and reached out to the viewers who had seen her first video. She also tagged Canon USA to see if the company could help the couple get a camera of their own at a price they could afford.
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Lee said Canon reached out within a few hours. It said it would give a camera to the couple.
“It’s so, so crazy. It shows how good humans can be and how cool social media can be if you just let it,” she said.
Lee said the only downside is that the couple had already cleared the SD card so they could start taking pictures of their own.
The card is now in the hands of a technical specialist; Lee believes the specialist can recover the images, she noted.
Lee said the whole scenario still “feels like a dream.”
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“I’m overwhelmed by the kindness of complete strangers,” she said. “It’s so cool that people show up for someone that they don’t even know. This couple is so wonderful.”
Lee added her advice for others who use social media.
“Keep using social media for good and there’s really wonderful things that are going to happen … You’ve just got to pay attention,” she said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Canon USA; it declined to comment for this story.
