It's Donut Day!
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on June 1, 2018 5:50 AM
Full Size
Hallelujah Lassies made donuts for American soldiers fighting in France during World War I. The Lassies were civilian women with the Salvation Army who made life a little bit better for American soldiers.
Full Size
Hallelujah Lassies with the Salvation Army made coffee for American soldiers fighting in World War I in France. National Donut Day honors them.
It was World War I, a time of intense fighting in France. American service men were battling for their lives in the trenches. Living conditions were not that good.
But 250 women, known as Hallelujah Lassies, helped make things a little more bearable for the men. The Lassies were civilians with the Salvation Army, who put themselves in harm's way on the front lines with the soldiers.
To honor these women, Krispy Kreme, in partnership with the local Salvation Army, has held National Donut Day for the past 80 years. The Salvation Army created the first event in 1938 in Chicago.
Keeping with tradition, Krispy Kreme in Goldsboro will give away a free donut to everyone who stops by Friday from 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. or goes through the drive thru, which is open 24 hours. No purchase is necessary.
"We have emphasized National Donut Day more strongly in the past 10 years," said Amanda Tilley, Krispy Kreme franchise operator for Goldsboro, Greenville and Rocky Mount. "We have been fortunate to have our local Salvation Army partner with us to help raise awareness of what they do, share a good piece of history and share donuts with our customers."
The Salvation Army commanders will be at the store from 4 to 7 p.m. to give out information about its history and talk about how National Donut Day came about.
Capt. Sherrie Stokes with the Salvation Army said the Hallelujah Lassies were on the front lines with the soldiers, with bullets flying past them just as same as the soldiers.
"These ladies offered emotional and spiritual care, as well as physical care to the soldiers who were fighting," she said. "A lot of times, the soldiers wouldn't be able to stop fighting to be able to eat for more than 12 hours. The ladies would be down in the trenches and would dig out a little fire pit area to brew coffee and make donuts.
"The coffee tasted horrible, if you talk to veterans from that era. But it's all they had to drink and they had to make do with what they had in the trenches."
The Lassies got creative with making donuts, using the soldiers' metal hats, which they filled with grease or oil and put a glass bottle in the middle, pouring the donut batter around the bottle to form a donut.
"The donuts didn't taste like what you get at a donut shop today," Stokes said. "They were more of a dry cake donut. If you go to Krispy Kreme or Dunkin' Donuts and ask for a regular donut with no glaze and no flavors added, that gives you an idea of what those donuts tasted like."
But making donuts and coffee was not all the Hallelujah Lassies did for the soldiers.
"They would also write letters home for the soldiers, word for word," Stokes said. "That tended to get very emotional. The soldiers were fighting for their country and were far away from their family. As bullets were flying past them, these ladies wrote down exactly what these soldiers wanted to tell their families.
"It's such a rich history and the Lassies provided so much care to the soldiers. Oftentimes, the men's feet would be raw from standing in water and all that, and the Lassies would rub down the men's feet, pat them dry and massage them trying to give them a little bit of relief from what was going on. It is so amazing."
And when the Lassies were not making donuts and coffee, writing letters and providing other care to the soldiers, they were praying for the soldiers.
"So many soldiers came to know Jesus as they were fighting in war because of the Hallelujah Lassies. They were taking lives with weapons, but at the same time giving their life over to the Lord. That's pretty powerful."