A three-year-old was reunited with his beloved toy thanks to a Good Samaritan.
Alyssa Hamlet was walking by the London Drugs on Granville Street in Downtown Vancouver on June 9, just before 7:30 p.m., when she spotted an orange cat stuffed toy on the street.
"Everyone was stepping over it, so I picked it up and put it on the bus stop sign," she tells V.I.A. (see slide two).
"But after looking around and seeing how crowded it was, I decided to take it home with me to make sure I gave it to the owner directly if I could find them. My gut was telling me that it was a kid's toy and nothing more than innocently lost."
Hamlet is an animation artist and jokingly blames the Pixar film Toy Story for compelling her to bring lost toys to their rightful owners.
When she got home, she posted photos on every social media platform she could, including several Facebook groups and Reddit. She even made a dedicated Instagram account for the lost toy.
After posting the images online, the thoughtful Vancouverite bathed the stuffed orange kitty.
"I did this for both safety reasons (it had been on the street after all) and to give it back in better condition than it was found if I could find the owner," she comments.
She didn't get a response for the first few days, but kept posting updates on social media to "keep the hunt alive."
Vancouverite receives word of a mother and son who lost an orange cat plushie
About five days later, Hamlet received a Facebook message from someone who took a screenshot of her post and shared it to a group she hadn't posted to.
"That second-hand post had a comment from a mom who said it was her son’s kitty! Team effort from the online Vancouver community!"
Hamlet says the mother told her her son Jay had dropped the plushie from his stroller on a walk downtown and was "very upset" and cried. When they returned to look for it, they couldn't find it. They even checked the garbage and assumed it was lost forever.
"I immediately messaged her that I had Meow-Meow! She was so relieved!"
Hamlet arranged to meet the mother and son the next day at JJ Bean on Commercial Drive near the SkyTrain Station. The mother told her that Jay is three years old and has had the stuffed toy since he was only six months old, and it is his favourite.
"Oh my goodness - the smile on his face when I handed it back to him was so precious! He proudly showed it off to his mom and offered me some of his cookie as a thank you. So cute," she says.
Jay's mom had told Hamlet in a text that she tried replacing the cat with another, similar orange one, but the clever boy knew it wasn't his "Meow-Meow."
"We parted ways soon after, but I kept in touch with Jay’s mom. Since being reunited, Jay has been taking extra good care of Meow-Meow, giving it extra cuddles and wrapping it in a blanket. He takes it to bed with him and looks for it when he wakes up," she adds.
"So precious!"
