Posts Tagged ‘Salvation Army’

National Doughnut Day is celebrated the First Friday of June each year. Doughnut Day refers to the Salvation Army “Lassies” who were the only women allowed on the front lines during World War I. These volunteers cooked meals and delivered them the soldiers. Sometimes this meal was doughnuts and coffee, the doughnuts cooked in the oil in a soldier’s helmet. American soldiers were often called doughboys.

Today, the Salvation Army remembers the sacrifice made by these volunteers and the soldiers by sharing doughnuts with the community.

The Salvation Army began in London, England in 1865. William Booth was a minister who decided to give up his parsonage and take his message to the poor and homeless. His original plan was to send converts to established churches, but that proved unsuccessful. What he found was that the poor, often disheveled and unwashed, were made to feel unwelcome in a traditional church setting. (more…)