Kade Foster was not having the best 11th birthday ― so it came as a surprise when his name started trending across the U.S. and Canada as major celebrities spoke up to wish him the happiest of birthdays.
Kade’s father Jason Foster posted an image of his son on Sunday, wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs shirt and standing in front of birthday cake printed with an image of Maple Leafs players John Tavares and Mitch Marner.
“My son Kade had his 11th birthday party last night. None of his invited friends came. That hurt,” Foster wrote.
He asked his Twitter friends to show Kade some love if they had a minute.
The response was overwhelming. In just over 13 hours, Foster’s post had racked up more than 55,000 likes, 8,300 retweets and 20,000 comments, and “Kade” trended in both the U.S. and Canada.
The Toronto Maple Leafs showed true Canadian kindness, with their official Twitter account, as well as multiple current and former stars from the team, tweeting their best wishes:
Marner, one of the players featured on the cake, said the team has a “surprise gift” on its way to Kade:
And Tavares, the other player on the cake, alluded to a surprise involving the whole team:
Many other sports stars, teams, television personalities and celebrities chimed in, including late night host Lilly Singh, actor Ben Stiller, and Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill:
Kade’s dad said he couldn’t comprehend what had happened.
“Kade and the rest of us are just amazed,” he wrote in a follow-up tweet. “Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. He is an amazing son and he will never forget this day.”