The students of a Moncton teacher whose prized guitar was stolen from his home and then sold at a pawn shop are taking action.

The teens are using social media to voice their demands that the instrument be returned to Art Moore.

Thieves broke into Moore’s Moncton home last week and took the guitar – a gift from his fiancée – and some electronics, at a loss of about $7,000.

With the help of his neighbours, who spotted a suspicious couple in the area, Moore tracked the stolen items to a Moncton pawn shop.

“It was a girl, a bleached-blonde girl, with a black eye last Wednesday and her accomplice was a young man,” says Moore.

He says the pawn shop owner paid a woman $75 for the guitar and resold it for $100.

Mooresays the guitar is actually worth $4,000.

To make matters worse, Moore was visiting his father in the intensive care unit at the Moncton Hospital when police called him about the break-in at his home.

“We want the truth about what happened and I will do anything to get the truth out because he was in the hospital with his dad and it’s a horrible thing that they did to him,” says student Tristan Terry.

Pawn shop owner Bill Roberts told CTV News last week that he asked the seller for ID and doesn’t believe he did anything wrong. But Moore says he should have known the guitar was stolen.

His students have launched a social media campaign to bring awareness to the theft, saying they want to right a wrong done to a teacher they admire and respect.

“Mr. Moore is a hard-working and honest individual. He gives back to his community as much as he can through coaching rugby and football teams,” says student Simon Bruce. “He even pays for players to pay if they can’t afford it.”

“He is a very committed man. He was in the military and he has done trips to Haiti to help them out,” says student Kyle Keifer.

“He really focuses on what he sets his mind to,” says student Hayley Keifer. “If he thinks about something he will do it.”

Mooresays he has received messages of support from across the country, but his students have really stepped up to the plate.

“I am really moved my students, some of my students and their friends, have taken up my cause,” he says.

The students say they don’t want to target the pawn shop, but they feel someone must know something that could help crack the case.

“We are a unit and just like my family or Simon’s family, or any of our families, we would stick together and watch out for each other and that is exactly what I am doing,” says Terry.

Police say they are investigating.

With files from CTV Atlantic's David Bell