An autistic boy has received tens of thousands of birthday cards from strangers all over the world, after his mother made a public appeal. Karen Jones, 49, from Exmouth, posted a request for help on Facebook after her son Ollie told her he loved opening cards and had made his own to open on his 15th birthday. Writing on a community page, she said: “He’s just told me he love opening cards to [the] extent he’s made himself a couple.”

Katelyn Vincik was born without a fully formed left arm. For more than a year she was on a waitlist to get a functioning prosthetic arm until the Harris County Public Library, Texas made her a prosthetic arm on a 3D printer. In an interview with Click2Huston, Kimberly Vincik, Katelyn’s mother said her daughter has always been a determined girl, and she kept on asking the same question like when her hand will get fixed by the doctors.

A little fish and chip shop in Lethbridge, Alta., on the brink of closing its doors is now flooded with new customers — and it’s all thanks to one very hungry, hungover man.

The lumbering figure comes into view shortly after sunrise. His pace is steady, his resolve determined on his four mile walk up Highway 84. Bruno, a wandering, wooly, wolf of a dog, is on his way to town. “It's just been his routine as far back as I know,” says Sharon Rouse, who watches Bruno’s arrivals from the picture window of the Hansen Realty office, where she works the reception desk.

They may say that man is a dog's best friend but that's not the case for two close-knit canine's in Washington. Six months before Hisho, an American Eskimo dog, was scheduled to have an eye-operation, his parents rescued Zen, a tiny Pomeranian, and the pair became fast friends.

A schoolboy in Australia has been praised for learning sign language in order to help his friend fit in at school.  Ross Kelly, a year six student from Canberra, learned the language from scratch to communicate with his friend Isam Gurung, who had just transfered from a specialist school for the hearing impaired. Ross and Isam initially started passing notes to each other before Ross went on to the learn Auslan (Australian sign language) so that he could translate lessons and assemblies for his friend.

A Georgia stray pit bull that made headlines after rescuing a woman from being stabbed and nearly dying in the process has found a forever home. He was a street dog who became known as "Hero" after saving the woman and getting stabbed himself before undergoing emergency surgery during which he died twice. Hero pulled through despite tough odds after the attack early this summer. On Thursday, his bravery helped earn him a new home.

UFC fighter Miesha Tate’s Instagram profile makes no bones about her line of work: “I punch faces for a living.” But the 30-year-old mixed martial artist put her athletic training towards a good cause over the weekend, when she helped out a family in need. The family had been hiking at the Mary Jane Falls trail in Mt. Charleston, Nevada, about 40 miles outside of Las Vegas, when their 6-year-old daughter, Kai, fell and broke her arm at the top of the trail.

Christopher Jones walked into the Columbus Police Academy on Friday and tapped an officer on the shoulder. Since Jones was 5 years old, he has never forgotten the name of Officer James Poole. “Do you remember me?” Jones asked Poole.

My wife, Adrienne, and I are long-time supporters of unconditional cash giving. From handing $5 to a homeless person on the street in Manhattan to raising $450 to give to a working father of one in rural South Africa — we believe in the virtues of sharing abundance in an empowering fashion that enables people to decide how best to allocate their resources themselves. When we found GiveDirectly in November 2015, an org that gives $1,000, unconditionally, to people who are in extreme poverty...

Herbie -- a black, grey and white tabby cat -- may seem like your average feline, but to his owner, Janine DeMartini, he's a hero. "He's not your rare breed cat ... but he's a perfect cat," said the New Springville resident. DeMartini, who works with Staten Island Hope Animal Rescue to foster cats, noted that Herbie had little time left in the city's municipal shelter system so she chose to take him in. "They told me he's friendly but nobody wants him," DeMartini recalled.

A teacher at Christian Academy's Rock Creek campus in Louisville invited a group of students to be part of her big day.

Eight-year-old Aiden Heath has spent a little over four years collecting loose change with a goal in mind. And that dedication paid off this week when he finally came face-to-snout with his very own service dog, Angel. "Aiden looked at me and said, 'This is a dream,'" his mother, Jenni Heath, told ABC News. Aiden, of Waitsfield, Vermont, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes four years ago. Soon after he learned about canines trained to help monitor glucose levels in people.

Not one sandwich, but two. And to go with them, two packets of chips and two cartons of yoghurt. For several months, Josette Duran packed her son two lunches to take to school. She assumed her son, Dylan, was just hungry; she then discovered he was taking one of them for a friend who had nothing to eat himself. “I’m telling you this is not for praise, but it’s pretty intense,” she said in a Facebook Live post. “He said, ‘No, Mum. It’s for this little boy at school, and he sits by himself, and all he eats is a fruit cup’.”

With a minimum wage of less than US$5 per day, the workers of Cambodia are among the lowest paid in the world – and that’s if they’re lucky enough to find a job that actually pays the minimum wage. In the small town of Kaoh Nheaek, home to just under 10,000 people and not far from the border with Vietnam, the average annual salary is under US$1,000, well below the officially-sanctioned minimum and barely enough for one person to survive – let alone a family relying on a single income.

When Beth Beard decided to lose 150 pounds (68 kg), she and her friend, Toronto-based photographer Blake Morrow, came up with a fun idea: to create a before-and-after photo series juxtaposing the old Beth with the new. The resulting playful photo series, conceived of and directed by Morrow, was called the Beth Project. Their dedication to the project is impressive and inspiring – Morrow took the photos of Beard just a few weeks before her gastric bypass surgery.

When Dr. Edwin Smith was a young dentist beginning his career in eastern Kentucky, he encountered many patients with rampant tooth decay. "I saw a lot of patients who hadn't seen a dentist before," said Smith, a Kentucky native. Appalachia has one of the worst dental health problems in the nation. And Kentucky has the third highest rate of tooth loss.

A Texas man didn’t realize how much his kind gesture meant until the recipient's family paid him back for it -- literally. Kasey Simmons, a 32-year-old server at Applebee's, never misses an opportunity to try to improve someone else's mood. "It's selfish really," he told WFAA. "When people smile, I feel better. It lightens my world."

New York police officers who rescued a malnourished pit bull out of a filthy Brooklyn basement back in April are once again trying to give the 4-year-old dog a better life — by finding her a wonderful home. Jamie was dangerously skinny, and covered in urine and feces, at the time of her rescue. She was examined by a veterinarian with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who found that her nails were so long, they were beginning to curl around her feet. Jamie's previous owner, Jahmil Barrett, was arrested and charged with animal cruelty; his case is active with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.

Volunteers in one of Philadelphia's longest-running Thanksgiving dinners for the homeless wil serve 100 people this year. Here are some of the volunteers' stories about what makes it such a special occasion.