Celebrities are joining together to help Canadian woman find stolen teddy bear

Jul 28 2020, 10:26 pm

A growing list of celebrities are speaking out with hopes of helping a Canadian woman find her stolen teddy bear.

Mara Soriano lives in Vancouver, BC. She and her fiancé were moving into their new apartment last week when a thief stole her black Herschel backpack.

Inside the backpack was an iPad, a Nintendo Switch, and a Google Home but, more importantly, a custom Build-A-Bear.

The teddy bear contains a voice recording from Soriano’s mother, who passed away from cancer last year. Soriano told Daily Hive that her mother’s voice changed as her condition worsened; the bear’s recording is the last memory she has of how her mother sounded when she was healthy.

“The thief can take the iPad, the Switch, the Google Home. Just give back the bear,” says Soriano. “No questions asked. No charges.”

Local businesses in Vancouver have helped Soriano by letting her see their security footage. And most recently, a number of celebrities have become invested in the search.

Vancouver-born celebrity Ryan Reynolds has offered a $5,000 reward to anyone who returns the bear to Soriano.

“Zero questions asked,” he said in a tweet. “I think we all need this bear to come home.”

Most recently, Kelly Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos, brought up Soriano’s lost bear on Tuesday’s episode of Live with Kelly and Ryan.

“Look, if you’re in Vancouver and you see a teddy bear on the side of the road, it’s probably this person’s teddy bear, take it to the authorities,” said Consuelos. “Or, you know what? Call Ryan Reynolds.”

On Tuesday morning, Soriano announced that both Build-A-Bear and Herschel got in touch with her about replacing the stolen items. An audio copy of her mom’s voice recording will be added into a replacement bear.

“I know it won’t be the same bear that my mom made with her own hands, but now it’ll remind me of her AND the time the world came together for us for a few days,” she said.

With files from Megan Devlin. 

Vincent PlanaVincent Plana

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