You're never too young to make a difference. A 5-year-old boy in Seattle is learning that in a big way. Edison Juel, called Eddie by his family, heard his parents talking about the wildfires in Maui and Lahaina and decided that he wanted to help. His family had no idea that they would raise $17,000 in donations.
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"It was Wednesday afternoon, we had the news on, and he asked me to turn it off because he said that made him too sad," Eddie's mother, Ami Juel, told USA Today. "At that point, I realized he really was paying attention and listening, that we needed to actually address it. I hadn't really intended to tell him about it necessarily."
Ami Juel explained that the family had been on the Big Island earlier in August and Lahaina back in January of this year. Eddie had trouble understanding the scope of the devastation, but he understood that people were affected.
"He’d ask if kids had really lost all their toys, or their bed, and then drop it, the issue clearly on his mind, but hard to process," she wrote on Instagram.
"On our walk Thursday night, he suggested a lemonade stand so that he could make money to give to the kids in Lahaina," she said in the Instagram post.
Juel and her husband took to social media to promote Edison's lemonade stand, which they set up in their neighborhood. In addition to selling lemonade, they sold other treats, and even some of Eddie's toys.
According to USA Today, even though the lemonade was only $1, many people donated $5 or even $20 to Edison's efforts. That's not counting the people who weren't local and donated online.
"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,'" Ami said. "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."
"He still thinks coins hold the most value. He’s baffled that there is no $15 bill. He asked if we could do this every Tuesday," Juel wrote on Instagram.
Thanks to the in-person donations, online donations, and corporate matching donations from Ami and her husband's jobs, Edison's lemonade stand raised over $17,000.
"I don't think he understands that this is just like not a normal response," Ami said.
"He now believes that he can make a difference and that he has good ideas and that it is important to care about our neighbors near and far," she shared on Instagram.
Sounds like Edison learned a very important lesson about philanthropy!
