Thomas Arthur Schaefer
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Friday, June 04, 2010

Unreasonable Northern Proxy

IT'S NATIONAL DONUT DAY TODAY... and I didn't even get my free donut on. I'm such the looser. Here is some information about the day. Thanks wikipedia.
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National Donut Day is on the first Friday of June each year, succeeding the Donut Day event created by the Salvation Army in 1938 to honor the women who served donuts to soldiers during World War I.[1] The holiday celebrates the doughnut (a.k.a "donut") — an edible, torus-shaped piece of dough which is deep-fried and sweetened. Many American doughnut stores offer free doughnuts on National Doughnut Day. In 2009, both independent doughnut shops[2] and large national franchises offered free doughnuts in the United States.[3][4][5]
Chris Parry from the Vancouver Sun noted in a satirical column that some Canadians are jealous of the U.S. holiday.[6]

National Doughnut Day started in 1938[1] as a fund raiser for the Chicago Salvation Army. Their goal was to help the needy during the Great Depression, and to honor the Salvation Army "Lassies" of World War I, who served doughnuts to soldiers.
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 "huts" that could serve baked goods, provide writing supplies and stamps, and provide a clothes-mending service, would serve the needs of US enlisted men. Six staff members per hut should include four female volunteers who could "mother" the boys.

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, 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 Salvation Army huts". Margaret Sheldon wrote of one busy day "Today I made 22 pies, 300 doughnuts, 700 cups of coffee."

A legend has spread 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.
It is still a fund raiser run by The Salvation Army.

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