More To The Story: Donuts

Did you know the history of donuts and the Salvation Army?

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – Tony McInnis is the founder and owner of a very popular Chattanooga donut shop. Tasty Donuts.

Tony’s a Louisiana native. He knows a good donut. In fact, all of the donuts come from his own recipes.

So, asking Tony what his favorite donut is……is, well, a little tricky!!

“Oh, that’s a very hard question. I guess it depends on my mood. I either go with bavarian chocolate. Or other times, I go with a blueberry cream cheese pie.”

Every day is a big donut day for Tony McInnis. But “National Donut Day” tops the charts. Saying being a good citizen is important to him, Tony’s donut shop has partnered with our local Salvation Army for the past 11 years. Distributing free donuts to first responders and public servants.

It’s really meaningful to our Salvation Army as well.

MAJOR MARK SMITH, SALVATION ARMY;
“I lot of people don’t know that. We feed, house and help people in crisis every day. The donut represents that. It represents that we’re helping our community.”

Interestingly enough, the Salvation Army is credited with making donuts so popular. The first “National Donut Day” in 1938 honored Salvation Army volunteers, who traveled to support our troops during World War One.

McInnis’s team is fully aware of that. And proud of that.

“We’re very proud. This wasn’t really a big deal here until 11 years ago, when we started doing this. And the Salvation Army takes 500 to 600 to 700 of our donuts out to service leaders. It’s very similar to what happened in WWI.”

McInnis says it takes about five hours to make the 600 some donuts for the Salvation Army to distribute. Tony says it’s a small price to pay, to honor Chattanooga’s finest.

From Ooltewah, Dave Staley, News 12 Now