COMMUNITY News:

Today is National Donut Day and hungry residents in Los Alamos completely cleaned out the shelves at Morning Glory bakery and grill at 1377 Diamond Dr.

Kevin and Melinda Albright own the eatery, which along with donuts, offers a full breakfast and lunch menu.

National Donut Day, or Doughnut Day, started June 7, 1938 when a young military doctor by the name of Morgan Pett was sent to a military base. On his way there he stopped at a bakery and picked up 8 dozen doughnuts. When he arrived at the base he started helping many wounded soldiers, and would give them a free doughnut. One man he helped was a Lieutenant General by the name of Samuel Geary.

Samuel Geary greatly appreciated the help on his leg, and the doughnut (as he was a very comical man) so he decided to make a fund raiser with Morgan Pett to give every wounded soldier, and the needy a doughnut. This fund raiser was later joined with the Salvation Army.

Soon after the US entrance into World War I in 1917, The Salvation Army sent a fact-finding mission to France. The mission concluded that the needs of US enlisted men could be met by canteens/social centers termed “huts” that could serve baked goods, provide writing supplies and stamps, and provide a clothes-mending service. Typically, six staff members per hut would include four female volunteers who could “mother” the boys. These huts were established by The Salvation Army in the United States near army training centers.

About 250 Salvation Army volunteers went to France. Because of the difficulties of providing freshly baked goods from huts established in abandoned buildings near to the front lines, the two Salvation Army volunteers (Ensign Margaret Sheldon and Adjutant Helen Purviance) came up with the idea of providing doughnuts. These are reported to have been an “instant hit”, and “soon many soldiers were visiting The Salvation Army huts”. Margaret Sheldon wrote of one busy day: “Today I made 22 pies, 300 doughnuts, 700 cups of coffee.”

Soon, these workers became known by the servicemen as “Doughnut Dollies”.

“Doughnut Dollies were women volunteers of the Salvation Army, who traveled to France in 1918 to support US soldiers.”

A misapprehension has taken hold that the provision of doughnuts to US enlisted men in World War I is the origin of the term “doughboy” to describe US infantry. But, the term was in use as early as the Mexican-American War of 1846–47.

In Chicago, National Doughnut Day is still a fundraiser for The Salvation Army.

In the Second World War, Red Cross Volunteers also distributed doughnuts, and it became routine to refer to the Red Cross girls as Doughnut Dollies as well.

There are three other doughnut holidays, the origins of which are obscure. International Jelly-Filled Doughnut Day is widely recognized as June 8 (occasionally as June 9). National Cream-Filled Doughnut Day is celebrated Sept. 14. and, Buy A Doughnut Day occurs Oct. 30.

The birthday of the United States Marine Corps was once referred to as National Donut Day, in a successful ruse by American prisoners of war at Son Tay prison camp to trick the North Vietnamese into giving out donuts in honor of the occasion.

Source: wikipedia