Last week, Kaitlyn Harp, aged 16, left a note telling her parents that she was running away from her Jacksonville, FL home with a 19-year-old man she met online.  Luckily, the parents gained some clue as to who the 19-year-old was when they found a picture of their daughter and the man, who was wearing a Chick-fil-A employee t-shirt.  

Steve and Tammy Harper wasted no time contacting a local Chick-fil-A branch near the Jacksonville airport, and from there were directed to a Chick-fil-A in Yulee. The manager there, Lita Fannin, posted the photo of Kaitlyn and the man on a Chick-fil-A Facebook page asking if someone had seen the two anywhere.  

Just two hours later a manager at a Winter Haven Chick-fil-A recognized the man in the photo as their employee.  Elio Florin tracked him down and drove Kaitlyn home to Jacksonville that night where she was happily reunited with her family at 1:30 am.  

“Because of their involvement, what could have taken days, weeks, or months, only took a matter of two or three hours once they got involve,” Steve Harper told First Coast News. “It is beyond words, as a parent, this is your worst nightmare.”  

This is a great example of the powers and speed of social media.  Before the existence of such ubiquitous tools, finding a missing child like this, would have been much more difficult, if possible at all.

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