A single father who works as a pizza chef at Gabriel’s in Kanata, Ontario has earned the nickname “Pizza Dad” after a crowdfunding campaign raised more than $6,000 for him to support his family through the holidays, as well as an abundance of Christmas gifts for his children.
Darren Haines wasn’t looking for attention: He had no idea that any of it was happening.
His co-worker Joshua Barbour started the campaign after he found out Haines was going through a rough patch financially, and might not be able to do anything special for Christmas with his kids this year.
Haines has two daughters, ages two and three, and a 10-month-old son.
His girlfriend has been in and out of rehab and he’s now focused on raising the kids alone. In a typical week he works 50-55 hours. His parents, his girlfriend’s parents and members of his girlfriend’s church have been helping with child care.
But he never imagined anyone would step up for him in this way.
“It’s not like I’m the most unfortunate person in the world, ’cause I’m not — far from that,” he said.
“Josh is the one who should be getting the attention. He’s a really decent man – big, big heart.”
Barbour is a pastor who picked up work delivering pizza at Gabriel’s over the holidays. The two met on Barbour’s first night of work and discovered they had a lot in common.
“We’re both fathers, we both love our kids a lot,” Barbour said. “I can tell from talking to [Haines] that his kids are his life.”
They even realized that their two sons were born a day apart at the same hospital.
“Same hospital, same floor, I’m sure we totally crossed paths showing off our kids in the hallway,” Barbour laughed.
With Christmas right around the corner, Haines confessed to Barbour he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get any gifts for his kids this year.
“I just kept thinking about his story. … I’d go for runs and it would just be on my brain and on my heart,” Barbour said.
He posted a photo of a pizza decorated with a green arrow – the “upvote” symbol – on photo-sharing website Imgur and asked people if they could donate gifts for Haines’s children this Christmas.
“That night, I just watched the thing go viral. I was like ‘Oh my goodness, something big is happening,'” Barbour said.
He set up a GoFundMe page in order to accept donations. Within 24 hours, people had donated more than $3,000. Gifts were shipped to Ottawa from all over the world.
“Everybody connected to his story, because I think at this point it was about someone who was working super hard and just needed to catch a break,” Barbour said.
“A lot of people are in that situation.”
Barbour’s whole family watched as the donations just kept coming in that first night.
“It really taught my family a huge valuable lesson about helpings others,” he said.
Even GoFundMe joined in, donating $1,000 to the campaign because they loved the story so much, Barbour said.
“It struck a chord right at the right time,” he said.
Barbour had planned to wait a week before revealing the surprise but it became so big so quickly he decided he had to tell Haines the next day, lest he find out accidentally.
In the middle of a shift at work, he led Haines outside and presented him with a box of snowsuits that someone in Ottawa had donated and $2,000 in cash.
“I was stunned, shocked, awe-struck,” Haines said.
“Nothing has ever happened to me like this before. A decent person saw something in me and knew I needed a little hand.”
Haines is now figuring out how best to spend the money.
“My kids will have a Christmas like I used to have when the family got together in England,” Haines said.
“I’m going to spoil them. They need that right now.”
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