The $10k Challenge has officially ended. In the month of August, we gave away just over 1,500 free dining cards.  We fell quite a bit short of our initial goal of 15,000 cards, but it was an impressive showing nonetheless.

 We’re at approximately 1,500 dining cards with only a week to go. We need to give out a lot of cards this week!

If you haven’t already, please sign up for a card and forward the information to your friends and local support group.  We need to give this one good, final push to see if we can hit the goal.

http://www.triumphdining.com/freediningcard.aspx

We crossed 100 cards ordered! This is only webstore traffic; it’s far too early to start counting SASE sent through the mail (mostly because they couldn’t have arrived yet).

I’m pleased to see that the rate people are ordering cards seems to be improving, and I’m optimistic because it’s not even August yet, but we’re going to have to work hard to get the word out about the promotion.

We sent out a press release, we posted to the Listserve, and we e-mailed some bloggers and support group leaders we know. Anyone have some more ideas on how we should get the word out? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

The giveaway is underway! I sent an announcement to the Celiac Listserv and less than an hour later we had 20-something orders for FREE American Dining Cards.  Considering August doesn’t even start until Friday, I’d say we’re well on our way!

Stay tuned for more updates.

We’re pleased to announce the first-ever $10k Challenge!

Triumph Dining is giving away FREE American Dining Cards until the end of August. There’s absolutely no purchase necessary; simply follow this link to get a FREE American Dining Card from Triumph Dining.

And, here’s the best part: We’re doing this to raise money for Celiac Disease Awareness! If we get 15,000 people to sign up for free dining cards, Triumph Dining will make a $10,000 donation in support of a national celiac disease awareness campaign. When we hit our goal, we’ll ask the gluten free community to help us decide which non-profit(s) receives the donation.

Together, we can build awareness on two fronts: With 15,000 more dining cards on the street, we’ll be educating more restaurants about the gluten free diet faster. And, with $10,000 funding behind a national campaign, we can diagnose and educate more Celiacs.

We’re working hard to give away as many dining cards as possible, but we’ll need your help to get to 15,000! Please sign up for a FREE dining card now and tell your friends about this offer.

Check back here for regular updates on the progress of our goal to give away 15,000 dining cards.

The FREE dining card offer is available at http://www.triumphdining.com/freediningcard.aspx.

Notify the Restaurant Beforehand.

Think back to when you were in school (for some of us, that’s a harder challenge than others): Did you prefer when the teacher popped a quiz, or when you had advanced warning to review materials and make sure everything was in order? When dealing with the gluten free diet, most restaurants are going to prefer the latter.

When you can, it’s best to make reservations and let the restaurant know about your special dietary needs in advance. This gives the restaurant time to get up to snuff on the details of the diet, look into what might be gluten free for you, and (sometimes) even make special accommodations.

One of the best gluten free experiences I had in Philadelphia was at a restaurant called Lolita. They didn’t have a gluten free menu, but were recommended as well-versed in the diet. When we visited (after calling a few days in advance), the kitchen had gone through the menu and marked everything on it that was gluten-free for me (about 90% of the menu, btw). It felt great to have so many options to choose from, but it was even better that the whole exchange was seamless and hassle-free.

Reward Extra Service with an Extra Tip.

Another no-brainer. I generally tip between 20-25% when someone handles my needs well, though I’ll go higher for exceptional service. The reason is that waiting on a Celiac requires far more effort than waiting on a typical patron. If you tip like everyone else, the waiter actually makes less money for the time invested with you than he does elsewhere. That can actually create a disincentive for the waiter to invest in serving you well! But, a good time can remove that disincentive, and a great one can actually incentivize him to go all out for you on future visits.

Make Yourself a Familiar Figure.

As a gluten free diner, frequent visits to the same restaurant can have two impacts. First, working with you regularly reinforces for the staff the specific needs of your diet. Second, regular visits increase your value as a customer. And, the more valuable you are as a customer, the greater the incentive is for the restaurant to invest in providing a variety of delicious gluten-free options.

When I lived in Philadelphia, I used to visit My Thai on South St. once a week. The first time I visited, the owner invested the time to help make me a special gluten free meal. The food was good and the meal didn’t make me sick, so I went back the next week. And the week after. And the week after that. After about a month, I had established myself as a regular. At that point, during one visit the owner started asking me a bunch of very detailed questions about the gluten free diet. The next time I visited, he had a very pleasant surprise for me - he had gone through his menu and checked every single dish on it for gluten, and it turned out that there were only two dishes in the whole restaurant he couldn’t modify to be gluten free. It felt so good that he would put the effort in for me, that I’d still be eating there every week if I hadn’t moved to Virginia.

Vanessa Maltin is a rising star in the Celiac world. She’s the author of Beyond Rice Cakes (a groundbreaking book that includes first-person perspective on handling Celiac Disease as a teenager), the host of cooking show Alternative Appetites, and the director of programming and communications for the NFCA (a national non-profit focused on raising awareness of Celiac Disease).

Vanessa recently reviewed the new edition of The Essential Gluten Free Restaurant Guide. Check out what Vanessa had to say about our Restaurant Guide and learn all about the great work Vanessa and the NFCA are doing to raise Celiac awareness at Vanessa’s blog, http://www.beyondricecakes.com/blog/.

We’ll be attending the NFCA’s sold out (!) Gluten Free Cooking Spree in Bethesda, MD this Friday, and will provide updates.

Make it Easy.

Don’t just tell a waiter what you can’t eat. Instead, be proactive. You know more about the gluten-free diet than he does, so don’t make him guess the menu options that might be right for you. Scout the menu for choices that are likely to be gluten-free and present them to the waiter as starting points for further investigation. Let the waiter use his limited time to interface with the kitchen and to confirm that your choice is a safe one.