LIHUE —
This is something tourists don’t do, said Cheryl Jackson of Michigan Friday morning outside the Daylight Donuts shop behind the Ace Hardware store.
“This is National Donut Day,” said Delaney Wheeler, who stopped off for a box of doughnuts on her way to work. “I’m a fiend for this. I wasn’t going to pass up on the opportunity.”
Wheeler got a free doughnut in addition to her order of a dozen assorted doughnuts to go for her co-workers.
“We had to come and get our free doughnuts,” said Jackson, who was in the company of her family and friends from different parts of the county. “We’re on our way to a hel
icopter tour. We needed to come before they ran out. Why do we have ‘Aloha Fridays?’”
Throughout the morning, Lt. Bill Simon of The Salvation Army, Lihue Corps, watched as a steady stream of doughnut afficionadoes entered Daylight Donuts, emerging with packages and boxes of the tasty morsels.
“You should have been here when we deposited into the red kettle,” said Brenda Branch of Florida. “This is a church thing.”
The group of ladies celebrating Jackson’s birthday took their turns serenading customers with The Salvation Army crew, which had Stan Robert playing the ukulele.
On Kauai, Daylight Donuts offered a portion of doughnut sales to benefit The Salvation Army in addition to offering patrons a free doughnut.
“I’ll have a strawberry-glazed one,” said Keegan Loo, who was picking up a supply for the Hawaii State Junior Golf Association. “They’re going to love me, and I get a free doughnut, too.”
National Donut (or Doughnut) Day was started by The Salvation Army as a way to raise funds as well as bring awareness to its social service programs based on the “Donut Lassies,” or female volunteers from The Salvation Army who provided some comforts of home to soldiers on the front lines during World War I, including frying donuts in the solders’ helmets.
The tradition has become established on the first Friday of June, and in addition to the donoughnut specials, The Salvation Army Thrift Store, located on the grounds of the Lihue Corps, offered a daily special on purchases.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
