Crossed Grain August 2020

2 | SUPPORTER NEWS In our last issue of Crossed Grain, we appealed to you to help save our future. With the coronavirus crisis placing unprecedented pressure on our services, and income expected to drop by 50%, we needed your help to ensure we could continue to support you, your loved ones and others to live gluten free. You answered our appeal, raising over £100,000 – money that will be used to keep vital services available, and to ensure we can continue campaigning for a better deal for people with coeliac disease and research into coeliac disease. We haven’t yet been able to access any grant money from the Government, making your support all the more important. THANK YOU We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who donated to our appeal or supported us in any way. Your generosity has helped to ensure that everyone who needs to live gluten free can continue to get the support they need, during and after the coronavirus crisis. In April, we opened our Coronavirus Hub to help you find answers to key questions around coronavirus and coeliac disease. Our Evidence and Policy team and Health Advisory Council are working tirelessly to help you interpret Government guidance, whilst our Commercial team continue to reach out to industry contacts to improve access to gluten free food at the supermarket and, as lockdown eases, when eating out. Meanwhile, our dietitians put together a new digital resource to help bridge the gap in NHS support for those recently diagnosed with coeliac disease, and our brilliant volunteers stepped up to reach out to the vulnerable in their local community. Visit www.coeliac.org.uk/coronavirustimeline to view the full timeline of everything that we’ve been doing to support you through coronavirus, and find out what’s coming next. What’s next for Coeliac UK? £ WE STILL NEED YOUR HELP Coeliac UK has been at the centre of the gluten free community for over 50 years but, due to the coronavirus crisis, we still expect to face a loss of income of around £500,000 . We have reduced our costs and will be using our reserves to make up the difference for this year, and you can continue to help us safeguard our future by: • taking part in the Coeliac UK Challenge Weekend • making a regular donation by Direct Debit or credit card • pledging a gift to the charity in your Will. To find out more, please contact our Fundraising team on 01494 796 724 , or by email at fundraising@coeliac.org.uk . You can also visit www.coeliac.org.uk/get-involved . OVER 30 WINNERS! Thank you to everyone who took part in our Summer Raffle this year. You helped raise over £18,000 for Coeliac UK, all by entering online. You can find the full list of over 30 raffle winners by visiting www.raffleplayer.com/coeliacuk/winners . We’d also like to say a special thank you to Corptel Ltd, siennaolivia.com , Dorset Cereals, and FreeFromAll for generously donating prizes. To hear more about our next raffle, visit www.coeliac.org.uk/raffle .