--- title: Doughnut Store Customers Support Owner and Sick Wife description: Customers of Seal Beach's Donut City are rallying around longtime owner John Chhan after his wife was hospitalized with an aneurysm. canonical: https://time.com/5447852/doughnut-store-uplifting/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-11-07T17:18:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:55:52.942Z og:title: People Buy Out This Doughnut Shop for the Sweetest Reason og:description: Sweet like a fresh glazed donut og:url: https://time.com/5447852/doughnut-store-uplifting/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf81663f8f52fceb6/69893e7efb4eac55c1898256/donut-shop-customers-help-owner-sick-wife.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: Close-Up Of Multi Colored Donuts og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: People Buy Out This Doughnut Shop for the Sweetest Reason twitter:description: Sweet like a fresh glazed donut twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf81663f8f52fceb6/69893e7efb4eac55c1898256/donut-shop-customers-help-owner-sick-wife.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # People Are Buying Out This Doughnut Shop for the Sweetest Reason > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Nov 7, 2018 5:18 PM UTC  Vesna Jovanovic / EyeEm—Getty Images/EyeEm Premium  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Nov 7, 2018 5:18 PM UTC Customers are rallying around the owner of a beloved Southern California [donut shop](http://time.com/money/5297278/national-donut-day-2018-best-doughnuts/) to help him care for his wife who is ill. For two weeks, fans and customers of Seal Beach’s Donut City have lined up in the early hours of the morning to buy out dozens of doughnuts prepared by owner John Chhan, so that he can close his store early to be with his wife Stella, who suffered an aneurysm in late September. According to [_CBS Los Angeles_](https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/11/02/customers-help-doughnut-shop-owner/), the couple, who moved to Orange County as Cambodian refugees in 1979, have owned and operated Donut City for nearly three decades. Once customers learned why Stella was no longer at the store, they came up with a plan to help the couple. While John turned down offers from customers to launch a GoFundMe, customers had another solution in mind: buying out all of the shop’s dozens of doughnuts by morning so that John can have more time to be with his wife at the rehabilitation center where she is now. Doughnuts and [helping out a fellow human](http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/31/how-disasters-bring-out-our-kindness/)? Now that’s pretty sweet. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5447852/doughnut-store-uplifting/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5447852/doughnut-store-uplifting/"},"headline":"People Are Buying Out This Doughnut Shop for the Sweetest Reason","datePublished":"2018-11-07T17:18:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:55:52.942Z","description":"Sweet like a fresh glazed donut","url":"https://time.com/5447852/doughnut-store-uplifting/","keywords":["Newsfeed","food and drink","Business"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf81663f8f52fceb6/69893e7efb4eac55c1898256/donut-shop-customers-help-owner-sick-wife.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf81663f8f52fceb6/69893e7efb4eac55c1898256/donut-shop-customers-help-owner-sick-wife.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Close-Up Of Multi Colored Donuts","caption":"Close-Up Of Multi Colored Donuts","creditText":"Vesna Jovanovic / EyeEm—Getty Images/EyeEm Premium","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5447852/doughnut-store-uplifting/","name":"People Are Buying Out This Doughnut Shop for the Sweetest Reason"}}]}] ```