Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds offered a $5,000 reward over Twitter to anyone in Vancouver, British Columbia, who could find and return a lost teddy bear.
The Build-A-Bear stuffed animal holds particular value to its owner, 28-year-old Mara Soriano, as the toy contains a recording device that plays a message from Soriano’s mother.
“Vancouver: $5,000 to anyone who returns this bear to Mara. Zero questions asked. I think we all need this bear to come home,” Reynolds tweeted in response to the story first tweeted by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reporter, Deborah Goble.
Soriano said that during her recent move to Vancouver, her backpack got stolen. Although the backpack also contained an iPad, Nintendo Switch, and citizenship documents, Soriano said that the bear is what she wants back most.
The voice-recording of Marilyn Soriano, Mara’s mother, is the final message to her daughter before she went into hospice and eventually died of cancer in June 2019 at the age of 53.
“At hospice her voice was different. Much softer. Not the mom I grew up with,” Soriano said. “That bear is the last memory I have of her speaking in her normal voice.”
Mara Soriano said that she hugs the bear whenever she misses her mom and needs a reminder of home.
“She said that she loved me and she was proud of me and that she’ll always be with me,” Soriano told CNN.
“It’s a reminder of home,” Soriano added. “The bear has a message in it in Filipino. It says ‘I love you,’ but in our language. So it’s very specific and very unique.”
Although Reynolds, 43, has been in movies with questionable content such as the DEADPOOL movies, he also stars in some family-friendly content. In 2013 he starred in both TURBO, which was given four stars for quality and +3 for content by MOVIEGUIDE®, and THE CROODS, which received four stars for quality and +1 for content.
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