National Donut Day

Salvation Army:

• The Salvation Army started National Donut Day during the Great Depression as a way to raise funds and bring awareness to The Salvation Army’s social service programs.
• National Donut Day commemorates the “donut lassies,” female Salvation Army volunteers who provided writing supplies, stamps, clothes-mending and home-cooked meals, and of course, donuts, for soldiers on the front lines.
• Approximately 250 Salvation Army volunteers provided assistance to American soldiers in France starting in 1917 during WWI.
• With limited resources, these treats were fried, only seven at a time. The Salvation Army’s Ensign Margaret Sheldon and Adjutant Helen Purviance cleverly thought of frying donuts in soldiers’ helmets.
• Last year, 30 million Americans received assistance from The Salvation Army’s 3,600 officers, 60,000 employees and 3.4 million volunteers.

Entenmann’s Bakery:

• Entenmann’s has made more than 4 billion donuts – if you laid them end-to-end, you could wrap them around the earth almost 9 times!
•  The Rich Frosted Donut has been the #1 seller since its introduction in 1972.
• Entenmann’s Donut Facility in Carlisle, Pennsylvania is the largest donut plant in the United States, producing more than 40 million boxes of yummy delight each year.
• Believing that people were more inclined to buy what they can see, the Entenmann’s brothers, William, Robert and Charles, and mother, Martha, invented the familiar “see-through” cake box for baked goods in 1959.
• At one time, more than 168 million pounds of chocolate have been used for Entenmann’s Rich Frosted Donuts, enough to fill all of the Great Lakes.
• In the early ’50s, Frank Sinatra used to call the Bay Shore bakery to place weekly orders from Entenmann’s.