R.O.C.K.

With so many things going on in our lives...we decided to add one more. This one however will benefit not only our family but many others who are going through similar situations as ours.

R.O.C.K (Raising Our Celiac Kids) is a support group chapter that was started by Danna Korn. She is a well known author of several books including Raising Our Celiac Kids, and Living Gluten Free for Dummies. This support group is recognized nation wide, with many chapters located within states across America. However, the closest one to us is in Connecticut I believe.

We'd love to meet other families with children close in age to ours or have gone through some similar situations. So, in talking with Dr. Hofley, (the boys GI Pedi) we discovered that a support group was in desperate need. However, Dartmouth Hitchcock's CHAD department just doesn't have the manpower to organize it. Enter Mike and I. We contacted Danna Korn and for a one time registration fee of $30 we are now nationally recognized as the ROCK leaders in New Hampshire, (and New England as well).

We have set up our first meeting for November 3rd at the Dartmouth Hitchcock clinic as they will help support us with rooms for meetings, mailings, and anything else we need to help keep the support group going. The response so far has been amazing. We receive emails and phone calls every day from people who want to come and are very excited about it. The room we've reserved only holds so many people, so if we end up needing more room we'll see if we can change the room size. At the rate we're going, we may have to.

Basically the meeting's will be unstructured. We'll have a Registered Dietician who represents Elliot Hospital and Hannaford supermarkets here in Manchester. Dr. Hofley will also be there as well as the possibility of several other medical professionals. We are trying to see if Trader Joe's will supply us with lists of the gluten free food choices as well as several samples for the guests to try. After all this food isn't always cheap and for those of you with toddlers, it doesn't matter how much the food costs, you hate finding out after you bought it that it's not pleasing to your picky little eater...gluten free or not!

The meeting is open to anyone who is interested in or currently living a gluten free lifestyle. We hope to share recipes, ideas, stories, suggestions and support to one another as our children and our lives continue to change daily with regards to what we can and can't eat.

If your interested in attending any of the meetings please feel free to post a comment to a current post, and I can send you my the ROCK email and website information.