By Ann W. Schmidt / FOX News
A 12-year-old woodworker who was teased at school for his hobby has gone viral after his dad reached out to social media for support.
Gabriel Clark, 12, from Cumbria, England, has been crafting things from wood since he was 4 years old, his father, film director Richard Clark, told Fox News Digital.
Recently, Gabriel, who is halfway through his first year in secondary school, has wanted a mountain bike in addition to the bicycle he already has.
Richard Clark told Fox News Digital that he told Gabriel he would have to figure out a way to earn the money for the mountain bike himself.
Gabriel turned to woodwork – carving bowls and cutting boards to sell. In early March, Clark’s wife helped Gabriel set up an Instagram page to show off his craftsmanship.
Woodwork not seen as ‘particularly cool’
However, Clark said that the kids at Gabriel’s school weren’t impressed with Gabriel’s hobby or his six followers – who were mostly relatives.
So Clark took to Twitter for help.
“Lovely twitter people – I don’t know how many of you are also #instagram users but I’m looking for a wee favour,” Clark tweeted on March 25. “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.”
“Within an hour, it just started going kind of nuts,” Clark said. “His Instagram followers were going up by the thousands every time we refreshed the page.”
“We have no idea, really, what happened or what went on,” Clark added. “I think by Saturday morning, it was over 30,000. And by the time things settled a little bit on Monday morning, it was over 220,000 followers.”
As of Wednesday, Gabriel’s Instagram account has 225,000 followers.
“Gabriel took a lot from that,” he added. “But also, it resulted in over 20,000 commissions for bowls and chopping boards, which did worry him a little bit.”
“Instead of making 20,000 bowls, he was going to carve one bowl, which he called his ‘Bowl for Ukraine,’” Clark explained.
“People have been hugely generous.”
Gabriel will be giving the bowl away in a charity raffle at Easter.
To enter the raffle, people have to donate to a Just Giving page set up by the Clarks. The funds donated through the page go directly to the U.K.-based charity Save the Children, specifically the organization’s Ukraine Appeal, Clark said.
Though Gabriel’s original goal for the Just Giving page was just £5,000 ($6,542.57 USD), the page has raised £66,219 ($86,648.55 USD) as of Wednesday.
What’s next?
Now that Gabriel has gone viral, Clark said he wants to be clear that Gabriel’s story of being teased isn’t “remarkable.”
“The teasing comes out of the fact that it’s not cool because you’re standing out,” Clark said. “The thing is… that’s everywhere. It’s not particular to Gabriel at all or any kid. It’s at every single school around the world.”
When the charity raffle is over and things settle down, Clark said he and Gabriel will have to figure out the actual cost of a bowl so they can move onto raising funds for the mountain bike.
Share
