I’ll keep this short and sweet today folks.
The people in Oklahoma are struggling and they need our help.
Imagine being without a home. What do you do? Where do you go?
Now imagine the same situation, but you must eat gluten-free.
That’s what many folks are now going through.
The good folks over at GoPicnic are making it easy to donate ready-to-eat gluten-free meals. Not only that, but through June 10th, GoPicnic will match your donation. So if you buy 5 gluten-free meals, they will actually send out 10. Very cool.
Below are the instructions and here is the direct link to GoPicnic’s Gluten-Free products page: http://www.gopicnic.com/Special-Diets/Gluten-Free
Whatever you can do is most appreciated.
Thank you so much for posting this, Dude.
xx
It was brought to my attention by KarenG on celiac.com and I think it’s a wonderful way to help.
They ship for free and match the donations. Even if you can give just one, it will help get a shelf-stable GF meal to someone in need..
The site is easy to use. Takes just a few minutes!
Thanks for posting this. I don’t usually post on here, nothing personal, Mr Dude! 🙂
Those who know me from C.com know I live in Kansas City (tornado alley). I have been thinking of the issue of disaster food relief since the Joplin tornado. In the case of Joplin, the whole town and the grocery stores were destroyed. From the stories I heard, the Red Cross wasn’t very helpful to people with Celiac disease. My understanding is that they do not provide gf food and it has been left up to friends, Celiac support groups, etc to find a way to get gf food into the disaster zone. This means that a gf person would have to live in a stressful and physically difficult on just a couple of pieces of fruit and maybe a carton of milk for several days.
Go Picnic told me they are trying to work with the Red Cross Disaster teams. This might be something we want to take up with the Red Cross at some point. I would hope for a well-thought out plan to present to them as opposed to just an internet petition, etc. They don’t seem to be the kind of organization that would respond well to that.
Have any of your readers worked with a RC disaster team? I believe they may be divided regionally but could use some info.
Thanks
I’ve never worked with a RC response team, but my sense from what I’ve heard is that this is a “minor” issue in their eyes (any food is better than no food, right? NOT!!!). There might need to be a separate and specific response team set up for people with these issues. From what I remember in Joplin, many in our community were basically left to eating white rice boiled in distilled water for weeks on end. And to be honest, I’m not sure I would trust the RC to meet our community’s needs in this regard – the details required would stretch an already-stretched intervention team to its limits.
I’m glad GoPicnic is doing this. It would be better if we (rhetorical) could get an even larger and more organized effort going – especially with hurricane season upon us.
I don’t think they would send a separate team in to feed the 1% of the population with Celiac or the <10% if you add various degrees of intolerance. I was hoping for something packaged, that has a shelf life of a year or more. It could be kept in the stocked trailers or in the warehouse with the items they will stock the trailers with. Even some protein bar type things along with the apple and the milk would make a meal. No special training needed to hand a pre-packaged gf food item out. Even the willingness to give the Celiac the ham and cheese from a fresh package or a spoonful of PB from a fresh jar would be helpful.
My brother is very involved with the Red Cross. I’ll see if I can bend his ear a bit.
Thanks Karen…and I don’t post on your blog either 😉
Let me know what your bro says. gopicnic said they were talking to certain areas. It made it seem like they all use different suppliers – probably by location.
If I had a blog, I would let you ” not post” all you liked! 🙂
hahaha
I have to admit, I very rarely send money or anything to special relief efforts, but this one is so personal to me. I just bought two items, so now there will be four going to Oklahoma for someone that needs gluten free food. Thank you to GoPicnic for doing this, and Thank You to Gluten Dude for letting us know how we can help!
I made sure to share this on facebook and to tell my friends and family to share even if they aren’t donating. That way we can spread this to as many people as possible as fast as possible so people can be aware of how they can help.
Thank you…thank you. I am hopeful a lot of our community jumped on this today.
This is so great, thank you!
GD-
Here is a link to a the kids with food allergies foundation. They have several links to different organizations that need food, money and meds.
http://community.kidswithfoodallergies.org/blog/how-to-help-families-with-food-allergies-affected-by-the-oklahoma-tornado?reply=16212993765793210
Let’s spread the word y’all..
xo-
Jersey Girl
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“We are ready for an unforeseen event that may or may not occur.” – Al Gore, former U.S. vice president
Thanks JG.
Shared on facebook and pinterest as well. This would be so very difficult! Prayers of hope to all of OK. Will continue to share..and pray. I thought of food allergies along with Celiac. I cannot eat most go picnic meals (even if they are gluten free)because of food allergies. Those Celiacs, really need our help!
Thank you for this information!! I am passing it along to others too.
See, we’re not just a bunch of whiners!
“winers” maybe… 🙂 I admit to doing that. Cheers, darlin.
That’s awful. Dr. Wise (the man behind the world’s first patented formula for celiac disease) is based in Oklahoma and so is Jason who previously interacted with us on here. All the best, everyone. 🙂
Boy you don’t give up do you???
And did either of them do anything to help people with food intolerances affected by the tornado? NO. Because there is no money in it!