The Teal Pumpkin Project
Many adults have fun Halloween memories of taking their pillow cases, pumpkin baskets or bags from home to home gathering all kinds of fun treats to eat later that night…and for the rest of the week (or at least until our parents hid or threw away the remainder!)
With more awareness and prevalence of food allergies, many kids are not getting to experience the fun of Halloween. I know, personally, we have so many close friends whose children have been able to dress up and go trick-or-treating, only to have to give away most or all of the candy they receive.
According to FARE (Food Allergy Research and Education www.foodallergy.org), nearly 6 million or 8% of children have food allergies. In order to help make Halloween as inclusive and fun for these kids, FARE has started The Teal Pumpkin Project.
The details:
- Paint a pumpkin Teal and set it on your porch with a sign that says non-food treats available here. FARE has a pre-made poster you can print. http://www.foodallergy.org/document.doc?id=352
- Buy some fun non-food treats (bubbles, spider rings, stickers) to have in a separate bucket from the candy. On their website FARE has a listing of inexpensive non-food items.
- Spread the Word!
At The LodeStone Center, we are excited to offer the children that come through our door a fun non-food treat for their bag, along with a flyer with how they can do this at home too!! It can be a fun project for parents and kids to do together.
