SEATTLE, Washington (PNN) - August 27, 2023 - A young boy in Seattle is showing that there’s no barrier to entry for disaster relief; that all it takes is a willing heart, a hot summer day, and some ice-cold lemonade.

Having recently returned from a family vacation on the Big Island, Ami Juel and her husband were watching the devastation of the Lahaina fires on television when their son, Edison, asked them to turn it off because it was too sad.

They didn’t realize the 5-year-old could become so emotionally connected to an abstraction so far away and seen only on television, so they decided to take the time to make a life lesson out of it and explain what had happened to the famous Maui town.

Edison immediately wanted to help and suggested setting up a lemonade stand like he saw once in Colorado. Ami and Edison’s father thought it a great idea, and so stocked up on pink and yellow lemonade, ice cream sandwiches, candy, sparkling water, and popsicles.

The hard opening came last Saturday on a busy Seattle street, where the response was absolutely prolific - stunning the family.

Even though the lemonade sold for $1,00 per cup, drivers regularly paid with $5, $10, or $20 bills with instructions to donate the change.

“Most people were like, ‘this is so cool. What a great idea. We’ve been looking for ways to help. We felt so helpless and didn’t know where to donate,'” said Ami. “A lot of people came by and stopped and told us like their story of a trip to Hawaii or some connection they had to the island.”

Ami took the idea a bit further and set up ways to donate online, and she and her husband even got their corporate jobs to match whatever was made from selling lemonade. After a week’s worth of sales, Ami and Edison had $17,000 to send to Lahaina.