Big companies can write big checks to charity, but small businesses don't always have the luxury of being so magnanimous. Still, Ericka Drayton wanted to figure out a way to help.

"Instead of just writing a check and trying to think of a number, I thought about giving a portion of every transaction," she said.

Drayton owns Waimanalo Laundry Services, an attended laundromat that also offers dry cleaning and drop-off service. Also, this year, she took over Kaimuki Laundromat on 10th Avenue. Inspired in part by the Tide detergent "Loads of Hope" program, which brings mobile washing machines to areas hit by natural disasters, Drayton wanted her laundromats to somehow help the victims of the tsunami in Samoa and the flooding in the Philippines. Since washing clothes abroad wasn't possible, she decided to donate 25 cents from every wash to a disaster relief fund to help both areas.

She doesn't expect to raise millions, or even thousands, maybe just $1,000, but she says: "If I can do it, there are other small business owners that can do it too. Maybe we can all band together."

The laundry business is generally thought to be semi-recession proof, Drayton says. People always need clean clothes. Yet her business has been affected by the economy.

"In Waimanalo, the customers are lots of working-class people," she says."When they get laid off, there isn't as much laundry to do. They're not using their work clothes."

She's also seen people forgo a trip to the laundromat to wash clothes at aunty's house to save the $2.50 it costs for the wash cycle in Waimanalo.

A laundromat is an intriguing place of lulling sounds and warm soapy smells where personal goes public in the fluff cycle. It is a study hall for college students, a Saturday morning ritual for working singles, the setting for myriad romantic comedy movie hook-ups. In Waimanalo, the laundromat has become a community gathering place.

"Oh my gosh, you don't even know," Drayton laughs. "At a supermarket or convenience store, the transaction is sometimes less than a minute. At a laundromat, it's 30 minutes to wash, 30 minutes to dry, 15 minutes to fold. It's a place to catch up. There's lots of hugs and kisses and aloha. There are people who have been reunited after 10 or 15 years."

Drayton is hoping people who have standard-size washers will think about hauling their comforters, pillows and rugs to one of her laundromats to have a spin in the extra large machines. "Not only will you go home with clean bedding, you'll also be contributing to a very good cause."