Liberty students make life sweeter at doughnut shop
PHOTOS BY CHET WHITE/THE NEWS & ADVANCE
Jyl VanDusen, owner of The Bakery at the corner of Timberlake and Leesville Roads, shares a moment with Liberty students who stopped in to purchase doughnuts Thursday night. Students have been patronizing the bakery after hearing VanDusen’s husband has had health problems and the family has had financial worries. “It’s like a bar for Baptists,” said VanDusen.
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By Dave Thompson
Published: April 18, 2008
It all started with a pastry craving.
A few months ago, Perry Petrozelli and a friend, both students at Liberty University, experienced a deep desire for Dunkin’ Donuts, but didn’t know where to find them. So they enlisted the help of a friend with a GPS.
The GPS directed them to what was once a Dunkin’ Donuts shop at the corner of Leesville Road and Timberlake roads.
“So we went there, and it was really late,” Petrozelli said. “We figured it wouldn’t be open.”
Though it was near closing time, the owner, Jyl VanDusen, waved them inside.
“She was just really different, right off the bat,” Petrozelli said, “one of the most delightful people at 9, 10 at night that you would ever meet.”
VanDusen had owned The Bakery for more than two years, and she said for a long time, people only knew it as a former Dunkin’ Donuts.
“They should have named it ‘the place that used to be the Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner of Leesville and Timberlake,’ cause everybody knew that,” she said.
No more, thanks to a multiplicity of factors, not the least being the fire Petrozelli helped to spark.
“People, when you say The Bakery, they know where it is,” VanDusen said.
“It makes me feel good.”
VanDusen said her husband Bill has been facing serious health problems, and she shared as much with Petrozelli. She also told Petrozelli of the attendant financial difficulties.
The only thing she asked of him?
“I said, ‘Just pray.’”
Then on a Thursday night in mid-February, a few months after that first visit, VanDusen got a call at home from a frantic cashier.
“She said, ‘Jyl, there are like 20 people in the lobby,’” VanDusen said.
So she rushed to The Bakery, only to find an equal or greater number gathered outside of the building.
Inside, she found Petrozelli.
“I just smiled. I said, ‘What did you guys do?’”
As it turned out, the conversations Petrozelli and his friend, Justin Warner, had with VanDusen sparked an idea in their minds.
They went to Tyler McClure, the resident assistant on Petrozelli’s hall, for help.
“She told them her story about her husband and about financial difficulties,” McClure said, “so they came back and the idea was kind of thrown at me and my roommate.”
The plan? Simply to help VanDusen.
“We kind of helped these guys get together some flyers and spread the word around,” McClure said, and the result spoke for itself.
“(We bought) almost every doughnut she had in the place,” said McClure.
The amount they put into the business totaled upwards of $200.
But the blessing didn’t end there.
“We didn’t even know we had a goal until we were all there,” Petrozelli said.
The group of students gathered in a circle, with the intent of saying a prayer for VanDusen, but she took them by surprise.
“When she came out, she decided to pray for us,” McClure said.
“We went with the intent of blessing her, and in return she blessed us so much more.”
But the students had the final say in the matter.
Passing around a bag, they all put in spare change and some bills as a personal gift to VanDusen.
“When I counted the money, it was a little over $504,” she said. “What they didn’t know was that I had a medical bill that had been $550.”
She had already paid some of it off, and the gift covered what was left, with a little left over.
“They had no way of knowing that,” she said. “I mean, that’s God.”
“I was like, ‘There’s no way. There’s just no way,’” Petrozelli said.
Since then, word of The Bakery has spread throughout the community, and at Liberty in particular.
“The next week, we went back and there were like four other dorms that had already been (to the shop),” said McClure.
And sometimes groups, though not as large as the original contingent, still make a night of doughnuts, coffee and conversation with VanDusen.
But more than making a profit, VanDusen said she operates The Bakery as a mission.
“God sent my parents, in their old age, to Africa to be missionaries,” she said, “and he sent me to a doughnut shop in Lynchburg to be a missionary.”
And though she’s considered putting The Bakery up for sale, VanDusen said she feels her place, for now, is right where it has been since she bought the shop.
“We are to follow to the last drop, if it takes everything we have,” she said.
“I’m full tilt, I’m going to do everything I possibly can to His honor and glory, and leave the rest in his hands.”
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on May 03, 2008 at 6:46 pm
It’s all somewhat academic (molly brown), because the both of us know you will NEVER see it happen. But my offer still stands. To be brutally honest with you Molly, I read the entire article with a high degree of trepidation. Liberty students, young men, prohibited anything even close to physical context with members of the opposite sex “experienced a deep desire” for doughnuts. Not danish or crumb cake or a pie or even hot “cross” buns. Only doughnuts Molly. Only doughnuts. I find the whole thing appalling.
Posted by ( molly brown ) on April 30, 2008 at 10:33 am
(cosmo)’Show me a story where Liberty students help out an Atheist who owns a doughnut shop and I will be the first to say..... �nice work Liberty!�’ Right. You wish we would believe you are so fair-minded. Instead, you would actually rant on about how they are helping the atheist in an effort to recruit him to christianity. Go ahead and try to deny it; your posts speak for themselves: (cosmo)"I do however point out the fact that you will NEVER see Liberty doing anything for anybody who ISN�T a Fundamentalist Christian. [or who they are not out to recruit]”.
Posted by ( amy ) on April 24, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Hey, Cosmo Wafflefoot: Have you ever read the “Lifestyle” section before? It only has fluff pieces!!! That’s why it’s not “Lifestyle News.”
Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 24, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Here is my point (crispy daisy). It’s another in a never ending series of “Fluff” stories about Liberty. It AIN’T news when someone helps out people who totally agree with them… are a member of their group or family… are ONE OF THEM. It IS news when they help out people who disagree, are not “one of them” or are a member of an apposing group. I’m not saying helping people is bad. I’m just kinda sick of reading this crap every day. Show me a story where Liberty students help out an Atheist who owns a doughnut shop and I will be the first to say..... “nice work Liberty!” I mean who DOESN’T expect them to help out their own?
Posted by ( crispy daisy ) on April 24, 2008 at 9:41 am
Cosmo said: “If the only people you are willing to help are the people who agree with YOU, in reality, you are only willing to help yourself.” I don’t think that’s true at all. There is nothing wrong with helping people who share your beliefs or philosophies. If I were an evangelical Christian (which I am decidedly not), then the majority of my friends and acquaintances would probably be evangelical Christians, too. If one of them needed help, I would be more likely to know about his or her need than to know of someone outside my circle who needed help. Are you saying that it would be selfish of me to help that person because we share the same beliefs? Also, just because you now know that these students helped this business owner, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t helped other people who are not like them. They may have donated to non-religious charities, helped with a Habitat for Humanity House—you have no way of knowing. Just because you don’t know about it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. I just can’t imagine how people here can criticize these students for doing something nice for another human being; it’s really sad to read some of these comments.
Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on April 24, 2008 at 7:55 am
(auntiem) posts: “I do not see the agnostics, atheists, or scientologists helping anyone on a large or small scale.” And I don’t think you ever will if your entire source of information is the N&A;. Don’t mean it ain’t happening. If the only reason you help somebody is to advertise or promote your religion, I would say you are more out to help yourself. That’s my point. Each and every day ANOTHER “fluff” piece on Liberty. (LibertyLawStudent), I don’t refuse to acknowledge anything. I do however point out the fact that you will NEVER see Liberty doing anything for anybody who ISN’T a Fundamentalist Christian. [or who they are not out to recruit] (crispy daisy) posts: “Most people don’t go out of their way to help anyone at all..” (A) I don’t think you are right. (B) If you are it speaks volumes about Lynchburg being a Christian Town. (C) If the only people you are willing to help are the people who agree with YOU, in reality, you are only willing to help yourself.
Posted by ( amy ) on April 24, 2008 at 7:27 am
To damalama:
The Falwells may own a lot in this town, but the only media they are is the Liberty Journal and the radio/TV stations on campus.
THEY DO NOT OWN ABC 13!!! Some simple research will show Allbritton Communications owns WSET.
Posted by ( crispy daisy ) on April 24, 2008 at 6:57 am
damalama, I thought Jerry Falwell was a bigot who espoused and spread hatred and intolerance. I thought he had strayed far from whatever had first brought him to the ministry. This story isn’t about Jerry Falwell, or any other Falwell, or about Liberty—it’s just about a few people who helped out someone in trouble. They happen to be Liberty students. How does that automatically turn a good deed into a bad one? There are a lot of truly awful people in the world, and I can’t believe that you and cosmo are criticizing these students for doing something nice for a fellow human being.
Posted by ( LibertyLawStudent ) on April 23, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Cosmo,
My comment wasn’t about doughnut sales. It was about people helping people out. Yes there are other places in Lynchburg where LU students have opportunities to provide help and hope, such as the hospital. However, as you indicate from this post of yours and others, you refuse to acknowledge the good things students have done to help others out. Will anything ever be good enough for you if it is done by an individual even remotely connected with TRBC/LU or Christianity? If one of us students does something positive, you demean us because we haven’t done more.
Posted by ( damalama ) on April 23, 2008 at 5:48 pm
LU is one great hypocrisy, theres no point in getting into it all problems in this city can be traced back to LU students. Vandalism in Wyndhurst to name something different than the drug using, theifing, homosexuals that attend that school, really it is no great honor to go to LU they accept anyone that wants to give them money. and to Wafflefoot, you are correct there are so many other worthy news stories other than this, however you must unstand that the falwells have their hands in EVERYTHING in Lynchburg, including the local media, did you know they own News 13, and you wonder why there are never stories about the damage Liberty and TRBC cause Lynchburg?? No news stories about how the all loving Jerry Senior opposed Civil Rights Movement of the Black People, but no your right a man like that deserves a road named after him. They buy up everything in the “name” of the church to be tax-exempt, and then in turn sell it to retailers making millions. and I leave you with these quotes from the late great jerry “The true Negro does not want integration… He realizes his potential is far better among his own race… It will destroy our race eventually… In one northern city, a pastor friend of mine tells me that a couple of opposite race live next door to his church as man and wife… It boils down to whether we are going to take God’s Word as final” --↑ (2001). “The Nation’s Best Bible College Gets Low Grades on Racial Diversity”. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 31.
“I do question the sincerity and non-violent intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left wing associations.”
As quoted in A Testament of Hope: the essential writings of Martin Luther King (1990) by James M Washington, pub Harper Collins, San Francisco ISBN 0060646918