A 12-year-old boy has gone viral on social media after his father shares a tweet about his amazing woodworking skills.
Meet Gabriel Clark. He is a student from the United Kingdom whose hobby was woodworking.
He posts his work on social media and has a few followers supporting his works.
After seeing that his youngest is “a bit down” because of the lack of support, Richard Clark, Gabriel’s father, made a tweet to add more following and attention to his son’s work. Gabriel also asked for support from his Dad.
What started it all is this tweet.
Lovely twitter people – I don’t know how many of you are also #instagram users but I’m looking for a wee favour. I’ve a 12yr old who loves woodwork. He spends hours on his lathe making bowls and creating chopping boards which he’s sells to save up for a mountain bike. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/Ny60rFf1TE
— Richard R Clark 🇺🇦 (@rclarkie) March 25, 2022
Before his father tweeted about his work, Gabriel only had 6 followers on Instagram. His dad had about 20,000 followers on the site at the time and wanted to help out in attracting more followers for his son.
Once people online got wind of the tweet about Gabriel’s works, everything just snowballed into something amazing. His work went viral and he received a lot of love and support!
People loved his amazing woodworks.
Overwhelmed with all the love and support his child was getting, Richard could not help but recount what happened in their amazing journey that all started in one simple tweet.
His Dad was upset too. It’s hard watching your children battling with life. But what to do? Mum wasn’t around, so Dad, the impulsive fool that he is, instead reached out to the lovely people on twitter. Maybe he could persuade some of them to follow his son? 2/15 pic.twitter.com/8GNz6UWOUX
— Richard R Clark 🇺🇦 (@rclarkie) April 15, 2022
In the thread on Twitter, Richard shared how Gabriel only wanted 60 followers. His friends at school did not find his hobby cool enough, and Gabriel wanted to share that he also had support for his unique love for woodworking.
He was aiming for 60, the magic number in teen world when your instagram page is apparently no longer deemed an embarrassment.
So he posted the tweet and got on with cooking tea. 3/15
instagram – clarkie_woodwork— Richard R Clark 🇺🇦 (@rclarkie) April 15, 2022
But, what they hoped to be 60 followers became thousands!
The next morning, Gabriel woke up to have 33,000 followers. And what’s even more am gazing was the overflowing number of orders for his bowls and chopping boards. How many, you say? 20,000 orders!
Gabriel calculated that with the huge amount of orders, he would probably finish them all in 32 years. Everything was overwhelming and Richard is very proud of his son and how things have turned out.
Gabriel had something amazing in mind.
Too young to start his own business and due to the overflowing orders, Gabriel decided he wanted to do something different. Instead of making 20,000 bowls, he will make only one Ukraine-themed bowl which he termed #BowlforUkraine. It had two lines with the colors of the Ukraine flag.
The incredible boy wanted to share the kindness he received and so, a special raffle was conducted for the fundraising event. Gabriel’s target was to reach about $6,500 but he got so much more in return.
The raffle was a big hit, and tons of people joined in.
Within 24hrs of going live you wonderful, kind-hearted people once again blew our goal out of the water, donating over £50,000!!!
The press got even more excited so Gabriel gave up a chunk of his holiday to run around doing interviews in the hope of raising even more. 9/15 pic.twitter.com/xi2rtKTKyy
— Richard R Clark 🇺🇦 (@rclarkie) April 15, 2022
He did not only achieve his target amount but also multiplied it over ten times. Richard could not help but be thankful for all the support they got for the fundraiser.
After the raffle, the fundraiser earned even more donations reaching more than $300,000 and counting.
All of these are going to a good cause.
A wee thread about a young boy and the tweet that got away. Feel free to RT.
Three weeks ago my youngest, Gabriel 12, came home upset. His love of woodwork was not deemed cool, nor was only having 6 followers on his instagram. 1/15 pic.twitter.com/FRGQ6GCMzM
— Richard R Clark 🇺🇦 (@rclarkie) April 15, 2022
Truly, an amazing thing can start from the simplest of acts. What began as a simple call for support due to negative things, has blossomed into something beautiful.
Gabriel and his father are happy and thankful for all the support, love, and donations they received.
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