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When Joshua Barbour set out to write an online call-out to help surprise a hardworking, “humble” Gabriel Pizza chef he had only known for three weeks, he was hoping for kind donations from a few dozen Ottawa locals.

What he got was a roar of responses from across the globe.

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“The post exploded,” said Barbour, who uploaded the story of Darren — affectionately nicknamed “Pizza Dad” and who prefers to only be referred to his first name for privacy reasons — on image-sharing website Imgur on Monday. In less than a day, the post received more than 16,000 “upvotes” and 350,000 views.

“Someone said to set up a GoFundMe page, so I did,” said Barbour. “It raised $4,000 in less than 24 hours.”

As Darren arrived for what he thought was a regular shift on Tuesday night, Barbour surprised him with thousands of dollars from strangers, a goodie basket full of treats and snow suits, and the promise of presents soon to be delivered from around the world.