Celiac Awareness Night with the Miami Heat could not have been anymore amazing! The on-court pregame recognition was a fantastic ode to celiac disease and opportunity for us at GFC to recognize Tammy Credicott and Shannon Ford for their unending efforts to raise celiac awareness. The Celiac Disease Foundation PSA was played not only once, but TWICE during the game. This was a HUGE for celiac awareness. Over $1,500 was raised for the Center for Celiac Research, our official non-profit partner and primary fundraising beneficiary. We are thrilled to see Dr. Fasano and his team be able to use this money to further celiac and gluten sensitivity research.

We look forward to making our Celebrate Celiac™ Gluten Free Expo and Celiac Awareness Night with the Miami Heat even bigger and better next year!

What a fun day it was connecting with local gluten free foodies in SLC, UT over Easter weekend 2013. We joined forces with Gluten Free Expo for this fun community celebration and fundraising event. We had lots of wonderful vendors interacting with the attendees as well as Miss Utah International doing face painting and talking with the kids. Real Foods Market had their delicious frozen yogurt machine which people really loved. Title Sponsors, Udi’s and Glutino provided lots of delicious goodies and even did their very own Udi-Q. Those hot dogs went quick! The event was complete with DJ and a hoola hoop contest. It was a fun first year event in SLC, UT!

Brandy Wendler, Mrs. Northwest International was another exceptional special guest who everyone enjoyed taking photos with. She is a great advocate for our community and we are grateful to have had her at the event.

A local company, Danell’s Signature Blends, provided the delicious gluten free pancakes for the pancake dinner. They served nearly 400 people gfree pancakes despite the rain and FREEZING cold weather!! For those of us here in AZ, it was bitter cold and wet. Attendees were troopers to come out and enjoy the event.

The Celiac Awareness Night event with the Phoenix Suns was a wonderful one that raised funds for the AZ East Valley Chapter of the Celiac Disease Foundation. What a wonderful weekend in AZ for celiac awareness!

Gorgeous goodies from Tulu’s Bakery were something that each child begged mom or dad to get. This really is one fantastic bakery! Udi’s and Glutino, our title sponsors were right up front catching the eye of all attendees. One taste of these products and people were hooked.

It was a lovely event following Celiac Awareness Night with the Dallas Mavs the evening before that benefited the local GIG group and our official non-profit partner, the Center for Celiac Research.

At the Jazz game, we were able to do a fan tunnel that the players ran through at the beginning of the game. It was great to participate while also raising awareness for celiac disease.

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1. This competition is open to residents of the United States aged 18 years or over, except for employees of Gluten Free Calendar, their families or anyone else associated with this competition. 2. All information detailing how to enter this competition forms part of these terms and conditions. It is a condition of entry that all rules are accepted as final and that the competitor agrees to abide by these rules. The decision of the judges is final and no correspondence will be entered into. Submission of an entry will be taken to mean acceptance of these terms and conditions.
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Everyone loved the handcrafted gluten free pasta offered by local company, Texas Gourmet Pasta. I was running around like crazy but quickly became a fan after my first bite as well. Kim and Sean, the owners are fabulous, full of life and spunk people. They are definitely the life of the party!

It was an unusually warm February day in San Antonio so our Title Sponsor Udi’s chocolate chip cookies tasted like they just came out of the oven for all those sampling. I heard people oooing and ahhhing all over the event! Our other title sponsor, Glutino had their famous pretzels for sampling which was a big hit for the guests. They were the perfect size for little hands to enjoy as well. I have to thank our fabulous friends Aubrey and Tyler Horner who not only helped volunteer at these tables but really did so much before and during the event as well. They are wonderful and we could not have done it without them!

The bounce house and face painting definitely kept the kiddos happy. Our Celebrate Celiac™ children’s art station was a fun place as well. There were markers and crayons on top of construction paper where kids and adults alike could write down how they are celebrating celiac. At the end of the event, we presented this to the local Gluten Intolerance Group leaders, who may I say are FABULOUS!! Francie Kelley and Anne Barfield are amazing women doing amazing things for their community. I am grateful to now call them my gluten free friends!

Special guests for this event included Karen Morgan of Blackbird Bakery and Jason Elmore of Find Me Gluten Free. Both were fabulous and the guests just loved meeting their local gluten free “celebrities” as they called them. I’ve been dying to meet Karen in person and she far exceeded all of my expectations with her love and genuine kindness for those in our community. She immediately embraced me and was full of smiles and spark from the beginning of the event until the end. What an absolutely fabulous person she is!! After using the Find Me Gluten Free app and hearing so many great things about it, it was finally nice to meet the brains behind this wonderful development for the gluten free community. I love that Jason truly understands what we need because he too has celiac disease. He realizes that it isn’t just a fad but something that is a life and death matter and he takes that very seriously. Jason was very kind and so fun to meet in person. I am grateful for people like he and Karen who are doing so much for each and every one of us.

The Spurs game was a lot of fun and Lindsay, our event coordinator was absolutely wonderful. She really went above and beyond to help make sure we were taken care of and happy. The court side warm-ups experience for our group was awesome! Huge swarm of gluten free folks sitting court side…woohoo! I am grateful we could raise more money for the Center for Celiac Research, our official non-profit partner through this awareness night. Thank you to all who attended, participate or volunteered (especially from the local support group and a special shout out to Jessica Kennedy and Francie Kelley’s family). We are grateful for each gluten free and celiac community we have traveled too and are so impressed with the wonderful people that make them what they are.

We look forward to seeing you all in Phoenix next on March 9th for our Celebrate Celiac™ community event at The Arizona Center from 2-5 pm then at the Celiac Awareness Night when the Suns take on the Houston Rockets! Come meet Brandy Wendler Mrs. Northwest International, Darius Lux a gluten sensitive LA based singer/songwriter who will be performing live, Tiffany Rustam-Davis a gluten sensitive painter who will be painting to raise money for the local Celiac Disease Foundation Chapter and Erica Dermer of Celiac and the Beast plus many more! Oh and did we mention their will be a gluten free (dairy free option as well) pancake dinner?! See you all there!

Chandice