Each year, we look forward to May Celiac Disease Awareness Month for the chance to celebrate our community’s tireless work to educate, advocate, and accelerate research for celiac disease. We are proud to share that this May was a tremendous success and we are honored to acknowledge our supporters whose efforts made this year’s Celiac Disease Awareness Month another win for the entire gluten-free community.

We kicked off May Celiac Disease Awareness Month with our Raise it. Give it. Get it! campaign, sponsored by Udi’s and Glutino. Participants received a gluten-free goodie bag for donating between April 17 and May 17. This campaign alone raised over $29,000 for treatments and a cure.

Snyder’s Lance showed their support by launching their own May Celiac Disease Awareness Month Campaign. Proud Sponsor stickers were featured on 1.2 million bags of Snyder’s Lance gluten-free products in stores throughout the month of May. Additional Proud Sponsors raised awareness through posting educational material on their websites and social media channels.

We also collaborated with Hill Holliday, a full-service marketing agency, on a public awareness campaign for celiac disease. We partnered with the agency and several other celiac organizations to launch a video-based campaign that creatively illustrated how people with celiac disease see food differently. There was also a pop-up bakery in Boston with cupcake flavors like Razor Blade Bliss, Chocolate Thumbtack Surprise, and Vanilla Rusty Nail Crunch on display to surprise and educate passersby.

In partnership with Children’s National Health System, we shared educational resources dedicated to improving the way pediatric celiac disease is diagnosed and treated at the annual Digestive Disease Week conference in San Diego, CA. We spoke with gastroenterologists, dietitians, nutritionists, and patients to explain the importance of education, advocacy, and swift diagnosis for those suffering without answers.  While we were at DDW, our CEO, Marilyn Geller, presented a poster, based upon our iCureCeliac data, in collaboration with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company entitled, Adherence to the gluten-free diet and celiac patients outcomes: real world evidences from an international patient registry, iCureCeliac®. The research poster was well-received and was chosen to be included in the poster tour, displaying the best posters of the conference.

With your support, and that of our Proud Sponsors and many participating companies, we far exceeded our goals for raising awareness and funds to accelerate research for treatments and a cure for celiac disease this May. We look forward to continuing our important work together.