There are a lot of reasons to support celiac disease: you, a child, a grandparent, or maybe your spouse have it. There are also a lot of ways to show your support: getting involved in or donating to the 1 in 133 cause, raising awareness by telling friends about celiac disease, volunteering for your local celiac organization, or donating to the 10th Annual Walk/Run for Celiac Disease. I hope you can do any one (or more) of these things to show your support for Celiac Disease Awareness Month coming up in May.
You can learn much more about the 1 in 133 cause from this recent post, and you can volunteer by contacting your local support group or creating a support group in your area.
10th Annual Walk/Run for Celiac Disease Twin Cities
This post is about the 10th Annual Walk/Run for Celiac Disease it benefits the University of Maryland Baltimore’s Center for Celiac Research. It is exciting to see this event go into its 10th year– including right here in Minnesota on May 21st.
Here's a good one of our family & friends in 2003 (no pics from '02) Emma is lower right, I'm not in it
I, and several of my fellow support group parents, have been involved since the beginning in 2002– back then I was 6 weeks postpartum, I didn’t ago on the 5K walk and instead nursed my baby in the car, and by the end my three year old was hanging on my leg and our bathrooms were out of toilet paper!
But that first weekend in May we did it! About 350 people attended our little gathering at Boom Island in Minneapolis, walked a 5K course, ate our home-made gluten free brownies and helped raise about $34,000 for research! We were all so passionate about raising awareness and were determined to make it happen!
Now 10 years later, we’re still doing it. We’ve quadrupled our attendance, added dozens of vendors and samples to our food fair, plus a 5K run and a bunch of kids games for our family-friendly event in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota (and yes, we have better rest rooms). It gets bigger and better each year. This year the Twin Cities event launched its new website, where you can register and donate right online, and even contact us to volunteer.
2002 NFL MVP Rich Gannon and Twin Cities FOX 9 Anchor Heidi Collins are the Honorary Chairpersons of the event.
We have some great silent auction prizes too! A World Series baseball signed by Hall of Famer Paul Molitor and a Football signed by:
Rich Gannon (2002 NFL MVP and the Honorary Chairman of our event)
Kurt Warner, (2000 Super Bowl MVP)
Larry Fitzgerald (Minnesota native, Current Wide Receiver for the Arizona Cardinals)
Aaron Rodgers (2011 Super Bowl MVP, Current Quarterback for the Green Bay Packers)
Joe Flacco (Current Quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens),
Matt Cassel (Current Quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs)
Michael Irvin (Pro Football Hall of Famer, Wide Receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, Won 3 Super Bowls)
Michael Strahan (2007 Super Bowl winning Defensive End for the New York Giants)
Brad Johnson (2003 Super Bowl winning Quarter Back for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
Steve Breasten (Current Wide Receiver for the Arizona Cardinals)
More than 1,300 attended the event in 2009
So many vendors will be there too, like GlutenFreely.com, Bakery on Main, Wildfire, Bittersweet Bakery, CobornsDelivers.com, Pure Market Express and more! You can also see which companies are sponsoring the event here.
We hope you can take the time to join us on May 21st at Holy Family Catholic High School in Victoria, or you can show support with an online donation to this event that brings so much awareness to our cause. If you don’t have a local fundraiser nearby, you can go to UMB’s website which highlights all of the walks across the country, and also takes donations.
You can make a difference when it comes to celiac disease: the research, the lifestyle, whatever you want to help with. So many opportunities are coming up in May, we hope you can get involved.
Tags: celiac, donations, fundraiser, gluten-free, research
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