The Healing Power of a Friendly Smile

 

Thank you to Historia Obscurum

"Perhaps the greatest heroes of the First World War (at least as far as this doughnut-loving vet is concerned) were the Salvation Army doughnut girls.

The brainchild of a young volunteer named Helen Purviance (top-left photo) from Huntington, Indiana, the Salvation Army began frying doughnuts for grateful U.S. troops in October of 1917. 

The doughnuts not only provided a taste of home, but they also replenished precious calories and fat for the exhausted soldiers.

The dangers the women faced at the front were very real, and they were issued helmets, gas masks, and .45 caliber revolvers for protection. They had to scrounge for ingredients and often had to roll the dough with expended artillery shells.

In other words, they volunteered to work their fingers to the bone in highly dangerous situations, living in uncomfortable conditions, to make sure the fighting men felt like somebody actually cared about them and their well being.

Purviance believed the doughnuts served a higher purpose, saying, "There was also a prayer in my heart that somehow this home touch would do more for those who ate the doughnuts than satisfy a physical hunger."

They sure did. Never underestimate the healing power of a friendly smile, a hot doughnut, and a taste of home in the midst of hell on earth.

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Thank you again, Historia Obscurum. I found this story so significant. It was terrible times, logistics, a person's desire to help, and the simplest things like donuts, and a friendly smile.

Kindness seems like a natural act, but in this world it is definitely not.

We can not change the world, but we can be kind to one another and smile. Try it.

*Never Underestimate the healing power of a friendly smile*