When Joseph O'Toole accidentally broke his mother's very special measuring cup, there was no length he wouldn't go to replace it. Little did he know that would lead him to Winnipeg and a jar of life-changing honey dill sauce.

"We always took it for granted; you know how kids are, when you are growing up in a household you don't care about your mother's things," said O'Toole, who is a student in Ireland still living in his family home.

This measuring cup was special. O'Toole's mother had received it as a gift from her best friend when she moved across the world to Australia when she was younger.

The cup was made by a small company in France in the 1970s, has multiple types of measurements and is covered in different languages — French, German, English and Spanish.

"I just thought it's a household item, there's probably hundreds. Apparently I was wrong, I was completely and utterly wrong in this case," O'Toole said.

After doing dishes — because he is a good son, O'Toole said — a plate dropped on the glass measuring cup and it shattered everywhere.

Panic and shame washed over O'Toole as he recognized he'd destroyed an important part of his mother's culinary history.

"I panicked. I was quite terrified of her reaction to be honest. She's a fierce woman," O'Toole said.

"You kind of have to confess things to parents rather than tell them. You have an unbelievable burden of shame when you confront them about things that you did wrong," he added.

The confession that the jar had broken was devastating enough, O'Toole could not admit his part in the destruction. Instead, he decided to begin a search to replace it.

The search

What do you do when you are trying to find an old measuring cup? Head online.

But O'Toole quickly realized, since he didn't even know the manufacturer of the cup, that would be very difficult.

"When you type into Google 'Vintage 1970s measuring cup,' you can imagine what you get, the hundreds of thousands of search results," O'Toole said.

Weeks went by as O'Toole searched local shops and websites around the world. Since his mother didn't know he'd actually broken the cup, he said "all the searching, all this subterfuge, was done in secret."

Finally, six weeks into the search, the Kijiji Winnipeg page popped up on O'Toole's computer and there was a picture of a measuring cup just like his mother's.

"I can weirdly remember the exact time. It was about quarter-past-four in the morning and I had been searching for about six hours," O'Toole said.

"You know panic and just kind of sadness gave way to overwhelming happiness when I discovered it."

But of course it couldn't be that easy, not for O'Toole. The local seller had written in the advertisement that she would not ship overseas and international buyers shouldn't even try.

Manitoba care package

As a student, O'Toole couldn't have been happier with the $10 price tag which accompanied the cup. Whatever the shipping cost, he figured he had it covered.

So what he needed next was someone in Winnipeg to pick up the jug and get it over to him in Ireland.

He went to the Winnipeg Reddit page and wrote a post explaining everything that happened.

Quickly, numerous people started offering to help but O'Toole said the whole thing also snowballed into a much larger plan.

"People started recommending other things to send to me from Winnipeg, local things," he said with a laugh.

A page was set up online so people could recommend what needed to be added to the box which would bring the precious cup across the ocean. People also donated to cover the shipping costs after one person, Derrick Donovan, stepped up to organize.

"It became a thing basically from that post and they turned it into a Manitoban care package," O'Toole said.

While the goal was to have it for Christmas, the package finally arrived at his home in Ireland just a couple of days after his mom's birthday.

Joseph O’Toole and his mother after they received the Manitoba care package which held the hard-to-find cup and the life-changing honey dill sauce. (Submitted) When O'Toole opened the box there it was — the measuring cup — beautifully wrapped "with enough bubble wrap to smother a rhino."

That wasn't all. There were badges and unique treats right from the Canadian prairies.

There was also a massive jar of honey dill sauce.

"My mother absolutely has fallen in love with this sauce. She thinks it's one of the greatest things she's ever had," O'Toole said with a hearty laugh.

"The jug has taken second priority here. This sauce is the real star."

The smile on his mother's face, and honey dill sauce on her food, couldn't have happened without the help of Manitobans, O'Toole said.

However, there's one part of the story he plans to keep from his mother: that he broke the measuring cup in the first place.

"She is none the wiser. She thinks that it's just a lovely gesture," O'Toole said.

"And she will never know because she doesn't live in Canada."