To Contact Us
Write:
PO Box 1603
Lafayette, IN 47902
Phone:
(765) 742-2050
Fax:
(765) 742-7513
E-mail
our office
Buy, Sell, Trade or Rent with Classified Advertising
Happening ... in the Local Church
 F=Hannah
Barnard, 10, mixes cinnamon sugar for doughnuts at St. Patrick Parish,
Oxford. (Photos by Caroline B. Mooney) |
 Cole
Barnard, 8, tests out a fresh doughnut on a recent Sunday morning. |
 Pastor
Father Bob Klemme visits with parishioners as they enjoy freshly made
doughnuts and conversation at St. Patrick Parish, Oxford. |
 Sam
and Lane Barnard watch the dough mix as they help make doughnuts on a
recent Sunday morning. |
By Caroline B. Mooney
The
Catholic Moment
OXFORD — What better way to start your day than Mass and fresh doughnuts? Members of St. Patrick Church are treated to the homemade delights after Sunday Masses, thanks to volunteers and the parish LifeTeen group.
The pastries, along with coffee, juice and milk, are free, with donations gratefully accepted. Those attending 7:30 a.m. Mass are the lucky ones who can eat doughnuts hot from the fryer.
Father Fred Gschwind, pastor of St. Patrick from 1958-69 and 1972-87, started the Sunday morning doughnut-making as a way for the high school Catholic Youth Organization “to give back to the church,” said parish secretary Nancy Brost. “It’s a nice way to support the kids’ group while teaching them to help the parish.”
Longtime parishioner Wayne O’Neal, who enjoys staying after Mass for the snacks and camaraderie, recalls that Father Gschwind started the doughnut-making in 1960.
CYO has given way to today’s LifeTeen group, which buys the ingredients and any profit goes to their group. The high school students make doughnuts most weekends, but other parish groups, including a sewing group and a Mexico mission group, take over occasionally.
“We have three crews of teenagers who make doughnuts each month,” Brost said. “The fourth weekend we ask for a family of volunteers.”
While warm, the doughnuts are dipped in white icing or rolled in cinnamon and sugar. Some volunteers also use chocolate icing and decorations for holidays, such as special St. Patrick’s Day doughnuts, Brost said.
“We go through about twice as many iced doughnuts as cinnamon ones,” said parishioner Cliff Barnard, who has been making the doughnuts since high school. He and his wife, Peggy, began doughnut making regularly for the parish about six years ago.
“We took over making these for the church at the county fair,” Peggy said. “You could smell the doughnuts all over the fairgrounds. We carted everything there. It was getting expensive — we had to rent a special tent. Then, the fire marshal cracked down on us and said we couldn’t have the fryer there. We tried making doughnuts here at the church, and re-warming them there, but it just wasn’t the same.”
While no longer part of the Benton County Fair, doughnuts are available in the parish hall between the 7:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Sunday Masses during the school year. Parishioners wander in, grab doughnuts and a drink, and settle in to visit with one another. CCD students often munch a few doughnuts before class at 8:45 a.m.
“Once in awhile, people come in and buy a dozen doughnuts to take home with them,” Barnard said.
The Barnards, with the help of their five children: Lane, 11; Hannah, 10; Cole, 8; Sam, 5; and Maddie, 3, were busy Sept. 13 making the first doughnuts of the year.
Doughnut makers add water to a bagged mix and let the dough rise a bit. It is poured into a machine and individual doughnuts are hand-cranked into hot oil.
The Barnard children help with all stages of doughnut preparation, make coffee, and put out drinks, tableware and donation baskets. Their mother said the kids are also official taste testers of the first doughnuts.
“I usually help set up the counter with napkins, cups and hot chocolate or mix the ingredients,” Hannah Barnard said. “But, I really like dipping the doughnuts in icing — that’s fun. I also help do the dishes afterward — I get a lot of practice at home.”
Parishioner Joe Kult said he enjoys having the doughnuts after Mass, “especially when the Barnards make them. When we don’t have them in the summer, a group of us go to breakfast together in Pine Village.”