H-E-B employees go to great lengths to reunite boy with beloved stuffed 'Rabby'

ROUND ROCK, Texas – A boy was reunited with his beloved stuffed rabbit after losing it at his local H-E-B -- all thanks to employees of the Texas grocery giant.

On Friday night, Ashley Inglet Sanchez and her son Noah went to a Round Rock H-E-B to shop for an upcoming Christmas party. As she finished up loading her groceries into her car, she went to get her son and his two stuffed animals out of the basket -- that's when she realized "Rabby," her son's beloved stuffed rabbit, was gone.

"Rabby goes almost everywhere with us and ends up in many of our family pictures," Sanchez explained in a Facebook post. 

After getting everything into her car, Sanchez said they went back into the store to retrace their steps and see if anyone had returned Rabby, but unfortunately, no one had seen the stuffed rabbit.

Sanchez left her contact information with store employees and was assured she would be contacted if they found Rabby. Additionally, Sanchez posted a picture of Rabby on a local Facebook group in hopes someone might have seen him.

"Once we got home, I decided that we would unload the groceries and go back," Sanchez said. "My husband Jason decided to come along to help, so we all loaded up and head back to H-E-B -- including our 10-month-old daughter Zoey! We get to H-E-B and retraced our steps this time more slowly and looked under the shelves as much as we could. We asked different department employees if they had seen Rabby and Jason even looked in the isle trash cans. We looked for another with no luck. We decided to call it and head home."

Sanchez said she became emotional as she realized it would be the first night in more than two years her son would have to sleep without his rabbit.

"(Noah) cried all the way home for Rabby and kept saying, 'He’s gone forever,'" Sanchez said.

After Sanchez put her son to bed, she saw several different Facebook notifications, but one stood out among the rest.

"It was from a lady who said she showed my post to her husband, Lyle Wells, when he got home from work at the H-E-B on 620," Sanchez said. "She showed him the picture of the missing rabbit and he knew right away where he was. He drove back to work, found rabbit for us and gave him to the floor manager Lisa."

Sanchez said Lisa, the floor manager from H-E-B, called her shortly after Wells returned the rabbit and said they could come and get the rabbit. But, since Sanchez was home with her two children, she asked her husband to go. Lisa volunteered to drive the rabbit across town if they couldn't pick the stuffed animal up and sent a photo of the rabbit to Sanchez with a story to tell her son about Rabby's adventures at H-E-B.

"Tell (Noah) Rabby had a great adventure at H-E-B," Lisa texted. "He helped in the deli, rode on a pallet jack, helped check out customers and was a Buddy Buck instant winner! He'll be glad to be home so he can rest after all that hard work. Rabby was a great partner and we will miss him."

Before Rabby was turned in, employees at the H-E-B made missing posters in hopes of reuniting the boy with his rabbit.

"I just couldn’t believe how so many people went out of their way to help a 3-year old-boy find his favorite most treasured stuffed animal, Rabby," Sanchez said. "I posted after the second time looking that we needed a Christmas miracle and we surely got one! It was a nice reminder during this season of giving of how people need to slow down, really help those in need -- no matter the need -- and spread kindness. Merry Christmas from Noah, Rabby and The Sanchezs."