A Rescue Mission cook prepares yogurt and donut parfaits with donated Munchkins from Dunkin Donuts. Courtesy photo.

Fortunately, that headline does NOT mean that 50,000 children have checked into the Rescue Mission in Roanoke, although I’m sure the mission does serve a lot of families with kids every year. No, that means that Dunkin’ Donuts this week donated 50,000 Munchkins (in some circles known as donut holes) from a special order that fell through.

This summer, a Craig County farmer named Sam Old donated a ton of eggplant to the Mission, where chefs creatively turned it into many different dishes. So we know the RM chefs are talented when it comes to repurposing ingredients.

According to an email from the Rescue Mission, these Munchkins have been made into donut bread pudding, yogurt parfaits with crushed donuts, donut brownies, cake balls and grilled donuts with ice cream. I wouldn’t turn down a single one of those treats!

“Whether it’s the people we serve, old buildings or property, or food, we love to turn ‘what could have been bad’ into ‘good news’ at the Rescue Mission,” said CEO, Joy Sylvester-Johnson.  “We are all about giving new purpose to things that others might think of as disposable.”

Kudos to Dunkin’ Donuts for not throwing these Munchkins away, and to the Rescue Mission for their clever use of ingredients in an effort to provide yummy sustenance to the folks they serve in our community.

I am pretty curious about those donut brownies… I’ll see if I can get a recipe for those!