June 5, 2009, is National Donut Day! Here's where to get your free donuts in NYC

National Donut Day is on the first Friday of June each year. The holiday celebrates the doughnut (a.k.a "donut") — an edible, ring-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^[1] and large national franchises offered free doughnuts in the United States.^[2][3][4]

Dunkin' Donuts: get a free donut with the purchase of a beverage all day. Click here for locations.

The Donut Pub: buy a dozen donuts, get one free (including munchkins). 203 W. 14th St., 212-929-0126

Krispy Kreme: get one free donut per customer - no strings attached! Try the Penn Station location in midtown: 2 Penn Plz., 212-947-7175

Balthazar, Soho, 80 Spring St., 212-965-1414

Doughnut Plant, lower East Side, 379 Grand Street, 212-505-3700

Seventh Avenue Donuts, Park Slope, 324 7th Ave., 718-768-0748

Peter Pan Bakery, Greenpoint, 727 Manhattan Ave., 718-389-3676

History

Wiki Brief History

National Doughnut Day started in 1938 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 behind the front lines in France.

Soon after the US entrance into WWI 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.

(The canteens/social centres that were established by the Salvation Army in the United States near army training centers were called "huts".)

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 WWI 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.