Add Your Home to the Turquoise Pumpkin Map to Make Halloween Safer for Children With Allergies
Halloween means candy, which means stress for parents of children with food allergies. It’s sad that you have to take a bag of trophies from your little ninja turtle, who so diligently put it together with his buddies Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael.
Project Teal Pumpkin Project, launched in 2014 by the FARE , is a campaign aimed at trying to make Halloween a safer place for all, including for each 13th child with a food allergy range from mild to life threatening. Common allergens in candy include nuts, milk, eggs, soy, or wheat.
To take part in the project, you just need to provide non-food treats for the trick lovers and treat and place a blue pumpkin in front of your home – a color that symbolizes food allergy awareness. How do you get a blue pumpkin, you ask? You can paint one, or buy one , or even just print a free sign featuring a turquoise pumpkin and some campaign information. It really depends on you.
You can also add your home address or street to the members map so families looking for blue gourds can find you.
Here are some ideas from FARE for non-food treats. Note that some children are allergic to Play-Doh plasticine (it contains wheat gluten) and anything that contains latex, so try to avoid these foods. If you like, you can have two bowls – one with candy and the other with non-food treats – and let the amateurs do the trick.
- Glow sticks, bracelets or necklaces.
- Pencils, pens, crayons, or markers.
- Bubbles
- Halloween erasers or pencil toppers
- Mini slinks
- Whistles, kazoo or beeps
- Balloons
- Finger puppets or novelties
- Coins
- Spider rings
- Vampire fangs
- Mini notebooks
- Playing cards
- Bookmarks
- Stickers
- Stencils