Mill Gap Ruritan Club Will Sell 7,000-8,000 Dozen Doughnuts During Highland County Maple Festival.

Mill Gap, VA – “We put a lot of love into our doughnuts.”

So says Tim Duff of the Mill Gap Ruritan Club. Tim says that selling doughnuts during the Maple Festival is the Mill Gap Ruritan’s principle fund raiser and that the entire community will benefit from the proceeds.

“All the money that is spent by folks buying our doughnuts, it gets immediately funneled back into cub scouts, girl scouts, the Library, the Fire Departments including Frost West Virginia because we rely on those folks a lot” says Duff.”It goes into everyone, club, group that needs money.”

Tim says they don’t take short cuts. The use top quality ingredients and make everything fresh.

“It takes roughly 1 hour 7 minutes to an hour and 30 minutes depending on the humidity and all to mix the dough, proof the dough, put it through the doughnut machine, raise the doughnuts, put them in the grease, glaze them with our special glaze and then you sell them” he says. “So, it’s about and hour and a half but the doughnuts you’re buying, they’re generally quite warm when they go out the window.”

Tim says the Ruritans have folks that specialize in gathering the necessities and organizing the event. But nothing would happen if it wasn’t for volunteers.

“I can honestly say we could not make these doughnuts without the volunteers. We need the volunteers” says Duff. “We got the Junior and Senior High School Class. They come in and help us. We’ve got the Cub Scouts helping us. We’ve got Girl Scouts coming in the week to fold boxes. We’ve got folks who aren’t even from here.”

But even with the usual suspects, the Mill Gap Ruritans are still looking for more help.

“Man if you want to volunteer, we’d love to have you” he says. “Don’t care what county you’re from, don’t care what state you’re from, don’t care what you experience level is, just come on in, have fun. You’ll learn something.’

“If you’ve never made a doughnut before; you can’t go to Walmart or Crispy Kreme and make a doughnut. You can buy them but you can’t make them. You wanna learn how to make a doughnut, visit the Mill Gap Ruritan Trailer, whatever aspect you want to learn about, we’ve got local experts that will get you fully up and running.”

The trailer is the hub of the doughnut operation and Tim says it’s easy to find.

“We are located basically on the corner or 220 and 250, right there in Monterey at the light” says Duff. “If you can see the light, you can see our doughnut trailer; we’re the large brown trailer, just to the south of the light. Behind what used to be Ernie’s Market.”

If you want to volunteer with the Mill Gap Ruritan Club, you can call Tim at 540-468-3094. He’ll set you up or direct you to whoever you need to talk to.