As a sudden spring storm pummelled the city with a deluge of ice pellets over the weekend, a hotdog stand vendor stood and watched as his livelihood burned down.

It was Sunday evening when the vendor, known to students simply as Mohamed, saw his cart erupt into flames outside Robarts Library.

Within hours, a photo of the destruction made its way onto social media, prompting graduate student David Wosnick into action.

"It just broke my heart," Wosnick told CBC Radio's Here and Now on Tuesday.

It's no surprise why.

'Such a genuine and kind person'

Mohamed, said Wosnick, seemed to be working all the time, his shifts regularly running 12-14 hours. Yet despite the long days, he's someone who always has a kind word for students, regularly asking Wosnick about his graduate program, his research and telling him about his family back home.

"He's a very hardworking man and I think that a lot of students have had these small micro-interactions with him just getting a hotdog here and there," Wosnick said. "And I don't think necessarily he realized the impact he's really had on students because he's just such a genuine and kind person."

Some of us forget that not everyone has been lucky enough to be offered the path of education. - David Wosnick , University of Toronto student

In the middle of the hustle and bustle of rushing back and forth to classes, moments like that with a friendly face who seemed to genuinely care can be rare.

And it made Mohamed go from a kind stranger to something of a campus fixture.

So when he learned that Mohamed's livelihood had been destroyed in a blaze, Wosnick said, his first thought was: "I've got to get on this."

'Forever grateful'

Toronto police spokesperson Katrina Arrogante told CBC News officers were called to the stand in the Hoskin Avenue and Sussex Avenue area just after 8:40 p.m., where the propane tank was engulfed. Fire crews doused the flames shortly before 9 p.m. and remained on the scene for the next hour or so until things had cooled.

Fortunately no one was hurt.

There was little left of the stand after it was ravaged by flames Sunday evening. (Submitted)

It was about 3:30 a.m. when Wosnick decided to go out amid the storm to the scene to see the wreckage for himself. When he arrived, he says, Mohamed was still standing there.

"My name is David Wosnick," he told him. "I started a GoFundMe and we're at $700 dollars and I think we might be at $800 tomorrow."

'Let's show our support'

"Some of us forget that not everyone has been lucky enough to be offered the path of education," he wrote on the fundraising page. "Let's show our support for someone who is as much of a part of this university as the rest of us."

Within days, they'd not only met their $5,000 goal, they'd surpassed it too.

On Tuesday, Wosnick met with Mohamed and his family to give them the more than $7,000 they'd raised online. It's enough, Mohamed told him, to get a new cart up and running within three to four weeks, a show of support the vendor said was nothing short of amazing.

"After what happened to my cart I had only one thing in my mind and it was what I am going to do next to get by financially. Thank you especially to the students at U of T who started this campaign to help me and my family, I am forever grateful for what they have done for me," said Mohamed in a statement shared by Wosnick with CBC News.

"The funds raised today are enough for me to start all over again and serve you for years to come. You have truly made me feel part of this amazing U of T community and beyond."