#BringJeffyHome: A stuffed lamb went missing downtown. He's back home thanks to social media and the kindness of strangers

Lily Wilson has lots of stuffed toys and loves them all. But “Jeffy”, a woolly lamb she has had for all of her three years, has always been Lily’s favourite.

So a potential preschool catastrophe was brewing on Sunday when the well-worn scrap of plush with blue eyes disappeared while Lily was downtown for Winterlude with her papa Matt Wilson and a friend visiting from Toronto.

They had parked at city hall, then walked up Elgin Street for a stroll down Sparks Street.  It’s not clear where and when Jeffy disappeared, but Lily started asking questions about her missing toy at abut 11:30 a.m. They retraced their steps with no luck, then decided to return home for Lily’s nap.

But Lily wouldn’t sleep because she was searching for Jeffy. “I don’t think she realized the Jeffy might never come home,” said Lily’s daddy, Danny Neville.

The plea was retweeted 172 times, getting an estimated 51,000 potential views. Children’s author Lana Button created the hashtag #BringJeffyHome.

Wilson returned downtown to continue the search. An NCC volunteer took down a description of Jeffy. Staff at a first aid kiosk were also on the lookout for the lost lamb.

Neville’s plea to the Twitterverse moved over the Reddit, where it got even more traction. At about 3 p.m., a Reddit user reported having noticed Jeffy propped up on the pedestrian crosswalk button at the northwest corner of Slater Street and Elgin Street, later updating to say Jeffy was still there.

Neville notified Wilson, who had not had any success in his search. By this time, the saga had those following online hooked.

“I’m invested now. I gotta know how this turns out,” said one Reddit user.

Jeffy was exactly where he was reported to be. Lily and Jeffy were reunited around 4 p.m., duly reported on social media.

“Everyone was super-helpful online and in real life,” Neville said Monday. “It was heartwarming. Everyone has had a favourite stuffie.”

Many in Ottawa were relieved at the outcome.

Noted one Reddit user: “As a parent with young kids, you and whoever put it there will be heralded as heroes in my house until the end of time. My six-year-old lost a dollar store bracelet at the pool two years ago and he still brings it up sometimes.”

Said another: “My son lost his elephant, Manti, at the park when he was six years old. He was devastated. We were lucky enough to find an identical replacement, which we convinced him, after some time, to be just as good. His name is Monti. My son is now a 20-year-old university student and still has Monti.”

Neville and Wilson also have a duplicate Jeffy on reserve, found after much searching on Amazon Germany. But duplicate Jeffy just doesn’t have the well-loved cachet of the original. The duplicate is fluffy, white and pristine, said Neville.

“The real Jeffy is the colour of a dirty snowbank.”

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