Sweden’s Home Baking Council started celebrating “Cinnamon Bun Day” — known there as kanelbullens dag — on Oct. 4, 1999, as a way to honor household traditions.
It soon became an annual event.
Officials in Scandia, the north Washington County city founded by Swedish immigrants, began marking the special day in 2018 by passing out free cinnamon buns in downtown Scandia.
They’ll be at it again on Friday and plan to distribute 900 homemade buns, up from 600 a year ago.
“We ran out last year, and we’re determined not to run short this year,” said Patti Ray, who is helping to organize the event.
About 700 of the buns will be distributed from 6 to 9 a.m. at Olinda Trail and Oakhill Road; another 200 will be distributed at Gammelgården Museum from from 9:30 a.m. “until the buns run out,” Ray said.
A group of about 10 volunteers spent Wednesday and Thursday making buns at the Scandia Community Center and Elim Lutheran Church, Ray said.
The event is sponsored by Gammelgården Museum, the Scandia-Marine Lions Club, the city of Scandia and the Scandia Sister City Council.
Ray; Lynne Moratzka, former director of the Gammelgården Museum, and Darlene Holtgreve, president of the Scandia-Marine Lions Club, spent Thursday at the Scandia Community Center. “They’re all baked, and we’re putting frosting on them now,” Ray said. “They each go in separate boxes, and we’ve got 100 of them in boxes already.”
The bun bestowal was the brainchild of Moratzka.
“It’s such a beloved event in Sweden that we decided to borrow the holiday here,” Moratzka said. “It’s a pleasure to do it because it surprises so many people with kindness.”
Volunteers decided to hold the Scandia event on Friday rather than Saturday, the official day in Sweden, because “there are more people in town on Friday,” she said. “We wouldn’t have any commuters on a Saturday.”
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