Being real and being honest.

Friends,

It's Ashley. Ashley from C4. Yes, from this website! I know. Hello! It's been so long. Too long. You barely even had time to get to know me before I disappeared. And why did I disappear, you ask? Well, let me be honest here for a little bit:

When Ellie and I first came up with the idea for C4 we had no idea what we were doing. There were just ideas! And dreams! And thoughts! And oh so many oh my gosh this is excitings! And so after many thinking sessions and weeding out what we didn't think would work, we launched C4 and we thought we had a pretty good head on our shoulders! But honestly, we still had no idea what we were doing. We thought we did! Oh did we ever. But after 3 short weeks we realized "uhhh, what is going on." What are we doing? What DO WE DO WITH THIS THING? It was a crash and burn time in our lives. I was extremely busy with my job and Ellie just couldn't carry this on by herself. So that led to a quiet (and quite sudden) end to C4 updates. We just couldn't do it. We wanted to! But we couldn't. We didn't even know what "it" was.

So here's the thing…C4 is not ending. No not at all! C4 will carry on until the day I die. I want this to be my life; we both do! But we realized we didn't know what "this" really looked like when we launched it. So we're stepping back. We've been stepping back for a while, hence the lack of updates or movement here. This is something we believe in fully, but we just need to go about things in a different way. So we're brainstorming, talking to people who KNOW things, big things.

But we're coming back soon. It might be small at first, but that's okay. Really, it is. We're climbing a staircase right now. We know what the top stair looks like, but we have to walk up the stairs to get there, not just magically jump to the top. And the stairs can be hard to climb. But we're climbing. One step a time. Sometimes walking back down the steps and starting over, but we're learning that's part of the process.

So join us in this climb. In this adventure. We need you guys. All of you. Every. Single. One. You're gonna start hearing from us more often. We're starting some things over. It's gonna be new and different, and yet the same. We're excited. And yet scared, nervous, little newborns facing a big world of "you can'ts" and "you're too young's". But if you keep hope alive, it will keep you alive.

All my love and respect and thankfulness to those already behind us,

Ashley

1DareToCare

I'm proud to announce our new venture, still connected to The C4 Project.... 1DareToCare. 

Hop on over to the website to read more information. This has been our heart for a long time.
(Also, this is starting as a Twitter campaign, so look for info on the website of how can you help!!) 

Eating with Celiac + the gluten free industry today.

The gluten free industry has expanded by leaps and bounds over the past few years. For some, it's cool to say, "Oh yeah, I eat gluten free." Yet people cheat and eat a sandwich at their favorite restaurant, or just one piece of cake at their sister's birthday party.

Now, I'm not trying to make these people feel bad or anything! Just imagine being someone who has Celiac and saying, "I don't eat gluten" meaning, "I cannot have gluten or else I will get really sick." Our society today (generally) has taken the gluten free food industry and made it extremely hard for Celiacs to get recognition because, well, everyone knows someone who is "gluten free."

Now I (Ellie) personally had to go off wheat and other things because I was getting mild migraines, and guess what, it worked! My headaches went away. So I am definitely not saying that for EVERYONE who says that they are gluten free is just being "hipster." There are serious health issues that have been solved by eliminating gluten.

So where is all this going? I wanted to share with you all, an article about eating when you have Celiac Disease. Even if you don't have it, I would recommend that you check it out so you can be informed.

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09375.html
This website has so much information about what Celiacs can and can't have, sample menus, what to do when you go out to eat, etc. It's amazing.

Also, Ashley + I will be helping out at the Baltimore Celiac Walk on May 19. If you would like more information, go to www.celiacwalk.org! We would love to see some locals there. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

We are a platform.

If you type Celiac Disease into the search bar on Google homepage and click any of the links that come up, it won't take you very long to come across story after story of person after person who started their Celiac journey feeling alone. Feeling stuck. Stuck in an endless pit of questions, doctors who don't believe them, tests, tests, and more tests. They feel like the only person in the world who has this problem. Until one day they realize they have Celiac. And on that day, all of a sudden, a whole new world opens up to them. It's like they were walking around New York City trying to find a quicker way to get places, and not realizing that below them was a whole network of underground tunnels with trains that will get you to your destination in lightning speed.

That's why we picked Celiac. I know Ellie touched on why we chose Celiac in the last post, but I want to touch on it again. Because honestly it wasn't our first choice. It was always an option, always thrown around, but it wasn't until I stumbled upon stories filled with words and phrases like "alone," "no one believed me," "I was so depressed and lonely," and "I thought I was the only one," that Celiac really struck a cord in my heart. Imagine going to 3 years worth of doctors appointments and getting misdiagnosed at each one - never getting better, only getting worse. Imagine how depressing that would be? How alone you would feel when the doctors diagnosed you with a simple "vomiting disorder" when you KNEW that was not the issue and you tried to tell them but they didn't believe you. It was stories like those, stories that involved 2 year old children who are literally wasting away because they can't eat anything because no one knows that gluten is what is literally killing them, that drew me to have a heart for Celiac Disease.

Our goal for C4 is simple - we don't want you to feel alone. You. Yes. You. You with Celiac - we want you to know that we are here. We care. We want others to care. And we want to let people know that this disease you have is real - very real. We are a platform. A platform to make your voice known. A platform to share your story with the world. A place where you can come and see that someone who doesn't even have Celiac cares for you. Because we do care for you. We might not know you, but we care. Deeply.

May is Celiac Awareness month, and throughout the month we will be doing different activities to raise awareness for Celiac. One of the ones we have already signed up for is The Celiac Walk - it takes place all over the country, but the one we have signed up to serve at is in Baltimore. Ellie and I will be there all day and we would love to see some of you there, whether you have Celiac or not. We will be volunteering the whole day, so feel free to either run, walk, or volunteer.

Let's together unite and shout out for those who feel they have no voice.

raising awareness.

Well hello everybody! 

We can't believe all of the support we have gotten from you all over the past three days, it's absolutely amazing. We can't say it enough, THANK YOU. Today I (Ellie!) will be writing about celiac awareness, why we chose celiac + what you can do about it.

I first heard about Celiac Disease a year ago. Before that, I had no idea what it was. That's the case for so many Americans now, and that's why we want to raise awareness for it. Did you know that Silent Celiac Disease is a real thing? Do you know what gluten free food is?

We chose Celiac BECAUSE not many people know about it. BECAUSE we felt like it was an unknown disease in the world and that needs to change. BECAUSE the people who have Celiac are real and they are living real lives and we care about them. And we want you to care about them too. We think you all are awesome. :) We are collecting stories now, and will be featuring some people on our blog within the next few weeks. Do you have Celiac? We'd love to hear your story.

The reason we ask you to share our video or our website is not because we think we're so great. I mean, we're fun. ;) But we really care about Celiac Disease and getting THAT message out. We want to tell as many people as we can about our mission, which is: C4 is about giving better lives to those who have Celiac and giving information to those who don't have it. 

So keep sharing, please. We can't do this alone! Keep the message going that Celiac is real and the people that have it are real. We can't believe how far C4 has already gone and we are excited to see where it goes in the future.

- Ellie
thiscrazyproject[at]gmail[dot]com

welcome.

Welcome. No really, welcome to the official blog for The C4 Project. 

You all are some of the first to hear about our project and we are so grateful that you took the time to check out what we are all about. We are passionate about raising awareness for Celiac Disease (if you didn't pick up on that already!) and we would love for you to be involved too.

We need YOUR help, we are just starting out! If you would like to help us raise awareness for Celiac, please share our video and our site and get the word out that this disease is serious and that people DO have it.

We will be posting on here regularly, stories of people who have Celiac, articles that shed light on what this disease really is, gluten free recipes, and other cool stuff. We are on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (making sure we covered all the bases) so please, connect us with there too!

Thank you, in advance. From the bottom of our hearts.
Ashley + Ellie