When a Canada hospital requested bright and cheerful homemade finger puppets from its community, they got far more than a handful—and it's a story that's reinvigorating our faith in humanity!

The IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Canada, keeps a healthy store of cute finger puppets available for patients and their families. According to the hospital staff, the puppets help to de-stress young kids by distracting them; and that sense of calm ripples outwards, to their families and even to the nurses and doctors. They're a win-win-win solution!

But back in the fall of 2016, the IWK Health Center found itself running low on finger puppets. So the hospital posted to Facebook, requesting new creations from any volunteers who would want to help them re-stock. And the response to that post exceeded even the highest expectations!

After the Facebook post was shared more than 12,000 times, the hospital found itself inundated with amazing finger puppet donations. Kylene Mellor, the IWK's manager of volunteer resources, says that they currently have about 75,000!

Mellor says that the refreshed store of finger puppets means that she and her colleagues can again offer both a sense of calm and a sense of agency to families in the IWK Health Center.

"Oftentimes people don't have choice (about) why they're coming to the hospital," she said. "But... they can look in a bucket and take whichever one appeals to them. So it's a lot about that empowerment."

Photos via The Star Halifax. To read more feel-good stories about people helping people, check us out on Facebook or sign up for our Only Good News Newsletter!