A 12-year-old was told his woodworking hobby wasn't cool. One tweet changed everything.
He went from six Instagram followers to raising more than $300,000 with one bowl for Ukraine.

Gabriel Clark's woodworking hobby just became very, very cool.
One of the tough things about being middle-school-aged is that interests and hobbies that are cool to everyone who isn't middle-school-aged are often seen as not cool by your peers. Unfortunately, that can lead a lot of kids to abandon things they love.
A dad who didn't want to see that happen inadvertently set off an avalanche of support and generosity when he tweeted about a lack of peer support for his son's woodworking hobby. Gabriel Clark, his 12-year-old son, has loved making things with wood since he was first handed his grandfather's hammer when he was 3 or 4 years old. "I've always had a real passion for it," Gabriel told PEOPLE, "and I've just taught myself everything I know."
Gabriel's father, Richard Clark, explained how sharing his son's struggles with his peers over his hobby blew up the internet over the past few weeks.
"Three weeks ago my youngest, Gabriel 12, came home upset," Clark wrote in a tweet on April 15. "His love of woodwork was not deemed cool, nor was only having 6 followers on his Instagram.
"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?"
Clark's tweet on March 25 had read: "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. So I was wondering if any of you fancied giving him a boost and following him on instagram at clarkie_woodwork it would make his day. Thanks in advance and feel free to retweet!"
Clark said his son was aiming for 60 followers.
But very soon, Clark's Instagram follower count rocketed into the hundreds, then the thousands.
Within days, that number had exploded to more than 225,000—and more than 20,000 orders for Gabriel's handmade bowls and chopping boards.
Knowing there was no way for him to fulfill that many orders—or anything even close to it—the young man decided to just make one special bowl to auction as a fundraiser for Ukraine.
He created a bowl made of beech wood, which includes a blue band and a yellow band, reflecting the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
The Clark family set up a Just Giving page with a goal of raising £5,000 and invited people to donate for a chance to win the bowl in a drawing.
And as happened with Gabriel's Instagram following, the amount just kept growing and growing.
With the increased giving came increased hope.
"What if we threw caution to the wind and let go of our cynicism and really went for it?" Richard Clark wrote. "What if we blew this silly tale of a small boy and his bowl out of the water with a last swing shot around the moon?"
He suggested people pool together to chip in and see if they could give the Save the Children Ukraine Appeal £100,000.
As it turned out, £100,000 was not only doable, but surpassable. As of April 16, they'd raised £150,000 and Gabriel shared a message of thanks.
The drawing was held, but it still wasn't over. The Ukraine bowl has now gone to a donor somewhere south of where the Clarks live…
…but the Clarks decided to keep the fundraiser open a little bit longer, as people moved by Gabriel's story were still wanting to donate.
With Gabriel's Instagram following blossoming to 250,000, it only seems fitting that the fundraiser should push for £250,000.
As of the writing of this article, it's at £246,711 (over $320,872). Clark said the fundraiser will stay open until Saturday.
"It's all too much. I need to sleep," Richard Clark wrote. "I leave everything to you. RT if you wish. Or not. You've all done more than enough. The fundraiser closes on Saturday regardless. Tread kindly good people and bless you all."
Social media really can be used for good, friends.
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A woman is getting angry at her coworker.via
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Can a warm cup of tea help you sleep better? If you believe it, then yes. Photo by 
Three women sit on a blanket in the park. 
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Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.