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Peterborough boy’s birthday goes viral, is given party to remember

Mike Judson of CHEX TV in Peterborough, Ont., poses for a photo with Odin Camus.

Odin Camus will never forget his 13th birthday party.

When none of the friends Odin invited to his birthday party RSVP’d, his mother, Melissa, intervened, sharing his cellphone number with a local moms’ Facebook group, asking them to send him birthday texts to help cheer him up.

"I want his thirteenth birthday to feel special, and like people care about him," Melissa wrote.

"I’m really struggling with finding a way to make today awesome for him, when it will just be us celebrating."

"We tried to have a birthday party for him and that didn’t quite work out," Melissa told CBC News. “So [Friday] morning I thought it would be fun for his birthday — seeing as he got a ‘big boy’ cell phone — to get some texts from people saying happy birthday. And it just went crazy from there.”

The Peterborough boy with Asperger’s syndrome, who, according to his mom, has difficultly making friends, received more than 5,000 encouraging texts from strangers.

At the Facebook group’s encouragement, Melissa planned a new birthday party for her son at a local bowling alley. It would be open to the public.

#OdinBirthday started trending on Twitter. Thousands of birthday wishes were posted online, including tweets from the Raptors, Blue Jays, Maple Leafs, Justin Trudeau and Elijah Wood.

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Odin’s parents took him out for poutine, where they were joined by 35 strangers. The restaurant owner announced that she would be naming one of the poutine orders after Odin.

Following dinner, hundreds of people — including firefighters, police, children with their parents and university students — showed up at the bowling alley, bearing gifts for the boy they’d never met. Reporters took Odin’s photo as he arrived at the packed venue in a 28-foot white limo.

One woman arrived with two cakes, crediting her community for helping her get through a hard time in her own life.

“Twenty-eight years ago I lost a child and community support got me through,” said Melinda Wease, a grandmother of seven. “We’re all neighbours in Peterborough.”

Roxanne King, Odin’s limo chauffeur, told the Toronto Star that she cried when she saw how many people were waiting for the teenager in the bowling alley parking lot.

Odin told King he felt “bigger than Justin Bieber.”

"It’s amazing how people care. I feel absolutely amazing," the seventh-grader said at his party.

"Honestly, Odin and I have been pretty much crying all day," Melissa said shortly after arriving at the bowling alley.

"People are here because everyone knows a kid who struggles to fit in," she said. "It’s not new. It sucks for the kid. But everyone can relate."

On Saturday night, fans at the Toronto Maple Leafs-Ottawa Senators NHL game sang “Happy Birthday” to Odin.