The Queen Elizabeth II Hospital Foundation needs your help brightening up the hospital stay of some of its youngest patients.

Senior development officer Dawn Miller said the organization has a partnership with the Grande Prairie Storm, who host a teddy bear toss every year to provide stuffed animals to patients, but now they need an extra hand.

"People are very generous and that's our biggest teddy bear fundraising effort. But this year, we started including the O.R., up in day surgery rather than just for (pediatrics)," she said.

"We started to realize that we needed teddy bears in the O.R. before the kids go in for their operations. That's actually where the biggest need was and that program has just been absolutely amazing and successful this year. But with that success, we've run out of teddy bears."

Miller recently posted the need for more teddy bears on social media.

"(A gentleman) saw it. He grabbed his friend, drove to Wonderland Toy and bought $1,000 worth of toys," she said. "How many young guys that age think to do that? It was just amazing."

The program, Miller added, is not only helpful to the children but also to the nursing staff.

"(The) child's scared, they don't know what's going to happen to them and (when) they get that teddy bear, they just calm right down and they don't let go of them," she said. "They can take them with them right in until they're out in the O.R. And then when they wake up, they're got their teddy with them."

With the city continuing to grow, Miller said, while they are incredibly grateful to the hockey team for its support, collecting donations of teddy bears will have to become a year round endeavour.

"They can come and donate through the foundation and specify that that's what they want this money to go towards and then we'll purchase teddy bears," she said.

Some businesses in town have already expressed interest in setting up collection boxes at their locations. Miller said those who would like to drop off donations have to keep in mind that, due to infection control, the stuffed animals have to be new with the tags on.

"I do want to thank the Storm for everything they've done over the years supporting us," she said.

"We at the foundation appreciate the community's support."