A Word from Our Founders
To our Gut It Out family,
What a year it has been! In the beginning of the year, we sat down and talked about what we wanted to accomplish in 2018; we are proud to say we, as a community, have done almost all of it! But none of that would have been possible without YOU and your unwavering support of our mission. Every time we set a goal or launch a fundraising initiative, we could count on all of you to make it happen! We truly feel we are making waves in the IBD community, and aiding life-saving and life-changing research initiatives. We are so excited to continue educating and inspiring patients and their caregivers. There is nothing we can't accomplish with the kind of support you have given us!
We started the season in Texas, moved on to Arizona and now are finishing our year back in Nebraska for the offseason. During the season, we held monthly meet and greets with pediatric IBD patients all over the country, while playing at home and on the road, to meet all of you and hear your stories. You inspired us in more ways than you could ever know! We reached 10 new areas this year and are so happy we were able to do so!
We set fundraising goals including the Pledge It Campaign, to Gut It Out merchandise, and Gut It Out Night with the Rangers. Through them all, you all were always on board to help us achieve our goals! Your overwhelming support of the Pledge It campaign truly blew us away! We were able to make grants to various hospitals and research initiatives around the country. We chose them carefully based on feedback from you and meetings with their leaders, and know they are going to make a huge difference! Please keep us updated on any needs in your area that we might be able to help with.
We started our Gut It Out blog, where we got to hear from guest writers about monthly topics that are important to patients and caregivers. Thank you to Mandy Morgan of Girls With Guts, Natalie Hayden of Life Camera Crohn's, Stacy Dylan of Connecting to Cure and Angie Asche of Eleat Nutrition, for taking time out of your busy schedules to partner with us. We received such good feedback and plan to continue these regularly! Also, thank you to everyone who shared their Got Guts stories and allowed us to share them with our GIO community. We hope you will continue to share your stories with us because they truly inspire so many!
There are many more ideas we have to continue our work in the IBD community and we hope you will stay on board with us to make them all possible (some of which are yet to come this year)! We're so excited!! But most of all, we couldn't do any of it without you, we hope you all know that!
Now we are back in Nebraska and are finishing up the building of our dream home, and best of all, we just welcomed our baby girl into our family! We are excited and ready to take some much needed time off to celebrate, focus on family, and try and get the hang of parenthood!
Thank you again for your support, we look forward to continuing to make Gut It Out a force in the fight against Crohn's and ulcerative colitis!
Sincerely,
Jake and Amanda Diekman
