The Teal Pumpkin Project for an Allergy-Friendly Halloween

This Halloween, FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education) is encouraging food allergy families to start a new tradition: painting a pumpkin teal and placing it on your porch as a sign to other families managing food allergies that you have non-food treats available at your home. Your teal pumpkin is also a way to raise awareness in your neighborhood about food allergies!Purchasing inexpensive non-food treats to hand out is a great way to include all children in trick-or-treating, and we hope that the Teal Pumpkin Project will be a tradition for years to come.

Examples of non-food items include: glow bracelets or necklaces, pencils, markers, boxes of crayons, erasers, bubbles, stamps, mini Slinkies, whistles or noisemakers, bouncy balls, coins, spider rings, vampire teeth, mini notepads, playing cards, bookmarks, stickers, and stencils. Oriental Trading is a website used by many parents to order these items.

Print out FARE’s teal pumpkin poster to post next to your door to notify visitors that you are handing out non-food items in support of all children with food allergies.

For those with pumpkin allergies, you can paint a plastic pumpkin. Painting a plastic pumpkin is also a way to reuse the same pumpkin year after year. Acrylic or spray paints are recommended, and those with milk allergies should avoid using milk paint. For instructions on how to paint a pumpkin, view this wikiHow tutorial (http://www.wikihow.com/Paint-a-Pumpkin)