It's a rags-to-riches story that starts with a piece of trash.
In 2018, a man named Adam Gillan walked into Alexander Archbold's now-closed Curiousity Inc. antique shop in Edmonton, Alberta with a ratty Bambi picture.
"We had probably been open for less than a year at that point. The neighbourhood I was in was a commercial area, and on occasion, we'd have homeless people come in the store and wanna sell things that they found in the dumpster," said Archbold. "A lot of the times, it wasn't anything that I was interested in because it was literally garbage."
Alexander had a look at the Bambi picture, which was in a ratty frame and covered in garbage, and gave Adam $20.00.
"It looked like an animation cel that they would have sold as a reproduction in the 1990s or 2000s at a gift shop or something, which would be worth about $40.00 or $45.00. So I offered Adam half."
While replacing the frame, Alexander found a certificate of authenticity on the back from the 1930s.
"It turned out it said it was from Disney Studios and was an authentic animation cel used from the movie Bambi," Alexander explained. "I went online, and I started looking it up. I found one person that was selling it for $3500.00 American."
Alexander knew he had underpaid for the item, and he decided to search for Adam to give him his fair share.
It took two weeks of driving up and down alleys, asking almost every homeless person Alexander could meet until he was finally able to find Adam.
He told Adam to return to his store, and when he did, Alexander let Adam know how valuable the ratty picture he brought in was worth.
"I gave him half the money in cash, and then we used the other half of the money to get him a plane ticket home."
Over a year, Adam was able to get off the streets, reconnect with his family, get sober and start his own drywall business.
Alexander and Adam continue to keep in contact.
Today on Connections, Alexander shares what happened that day and what this exchange meant to him.