Wichita shop delivers fresh doughnuts for volunteers hours away

This tiny town in southwest Kansas is a long way from a professional bakery. But since Tuesday morning, volunteers from several states have been eating the breakfast many in Wichita have eaten.

That’s because their breakfast was made in a Wichita bakery just hours before.

Marilyn Wright, co-owner of Paradise Donuts, has been shipping 15 to 20 dozen doughnuts per morning, and they’ve been arriving at around 7 a.m. That means they’re on the road by about 4:15 a.m.

“I got to thinking that, man, I bet they could really benefit from some fresh doughnuts,” said Wright. “It’s been (two weeks), and I figure those poor people have to be wearing down.”

She’s talking about a collection of Ashland residents and church groups who have banded together to feed volunteers who’ve come to help clean up after fires earlier this month killed thousands of cattle and destroyed hundreds of miles of fence and more than 20 homes.

Wright, who is from a rural background, said she follows what’s happening in Kansas’ farm and ranch country. She had special reason to be concerned when Ashland was evacuated on March 6.

Her son Hervey and his wife, Sandi, have lived in Ashland for several months. All know the husband and wife are fortunate to be alive.

“We maybe waited a little too long to evacuate,” said Sandi Wright, chief financial officer at the local hospital. “Parts of our car got melted. I really got nervous when my husband got nervous.”

After several detours, they made it to Coldwater, about 35 miles away. Their home and possessions were spared. Marilyn Wright said she’d been looking for a way to help the community since she learned her family was fine.

She said news that several groups of high school and college-aged kids were coming from a variety of states to volunteer labor over spring break helped her decide to send hot doughnuts and breakfast burritos this week.

“It seems like I have more time than money, and it’s not that big of a deal to cook a few more dozen doughnuts,” Wright said. “It’s something I can do, and it seems like they appreciate it.”

“It’s really appreciated. They’re really good, but it also gives our cooks a break, a meal they don’t have to worry about,” said Rock Hill, who helps manage meals at the church camp. “Otherwise, we’d have ladies up late into the night and then getting up early in the morning. This is a lot better.”

As well at the church camp, where volunteers are lodged in bunkhouses and are fed in the central cafeteria, Wright or Wichitan Beth Schafers, a volunteer driver, have been dropping doughnuts off at a feed store where truckers are donating thousands of tons of hay from all over America. Some have also gone to a local hardware store that’s collecting fencing materials for area ranchers.

Wright said she plans on shipping a large batch of doughnuts to Ashland early Friday morning but will be too busy to do the same on Saturday and Sunday.

“We’ll keep in touch with everybody out there after that and see how they’re doing,” Wright said. “If they can use them, we’ll probably take some more out to them in a few days.”

This story was originally published March 24, 2017 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Wichita shop delivers fresh doughnuts for volunteers hours away."