12/20/2023 0 Comments Teal pumpkin bucketBut now on Halloween, Carter says many of her friends put out teal pumpkins and tag her on social media with a note that says they are thinking of her boys. It's a system that's worked for many parents of kids with food allergies even before Teal Pumpkin. "They can participate like everyone else but know not to touch the candy." "They go through the act of trick-or-treating," Carter says. "When we trick-or-treat, we swap out the candy for 'tricks'," says Hillary Carter, whose two boys - ages seven and nine - both have serious food allergies. "It's a complex disease that causes a great deal of stress for kids and parents," says Gable. These kids often face problems with bullying. "One in 13 children has a food allergy," she says. This year over 33,000 houses have listed their homes or businesses on a searchable Teal Pumpkin map, though Lisa Gable, CEO of Food Allergy Research & Education, a national non-profit helping to promote Teal Pumpkin, says she expects the number of people participating is much higher. The Teal Pumpkin project started at a local FACET event in 2013 and took off quickly afterward thanks to social media. "We don't want to take candy away from the people who can have it." "We don't want to be the Grinch of Halloween at all," says Norris. In addition to handing out candy, houses that display teal pumpkins also have bowls of non-food items such as glow sticks, stickers or Dracula teeth. Having a teal pumpkin on the doorstep (teal being the color of food allergy awareness) is a way to signal to people with food allergies that this is a safe home for trick-or-treating, says Jennifer Norris, president of the Food Allergy Community of East Tennessee (FACET), which started the project. It's all part of a campaign to make the culmination of Halloween festivities, trick-or-treating, more food-allergy friendly. There are teal plastic pumpkins, paint-your-own pumpkin kits, and trick-or-treating buckets. A young girl paints a pumpkin teal to signify that a place is safe for children with food allergies to go trick-or-treating.Ĭourtesy of Food Allergy Research & Education
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