Teal Pumpkin Project raising awareness on food allergies for Halloween
Candy is always something coveted by kids for Halloween, but what about those with food allergies? They might not be able to enjoy the same treats other get.
A house in Palm Desert is all decked out in Halloween decor, a favorite holiday for Lisa Sterud.
“Especially as kids, you get to dress up and be what you want to be and have fun,” she said.
Among her decorations, a teal pumpkin, aimed at raising awareness about food allergies and including kids that have them in the festivities.
“I couldn’t imagine not having fun and celebrating Halloween,” Sterud said.
She is one of at least four households in the Coachella Valley participating in the Teal Pumpkin Project, offering non food treats alongside candy for kids when they trick or treat, like coloring books and glow sticks. {“url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1055554906625638400″,”author_name”:”Jeremy Chen”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;A local mother is taking part in the Teal Pumpkin Project helping raise awareness about food allergies in kids for Halloween. How it’s helping those kids who may have them coming up tonight on &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KESQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@KESQ&#lt;/a&#gt; and &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/LocalTwo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@LocalTwo&#lt;/a&#gt;. &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/KTVILnQv0N”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/KTVILnQv0N&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;— Jeremy Chen (@JeremyChenKESQ) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1055554906625638400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;October 25, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″} “It’s kind of fun for them to find something else in their bags or pumpkins that isn’t candy like when they get a toy or a ring or a pencil,” Sterud said.
According to the federal government, 1 in 13 children suffer from a food allergy. That’s nearly 6 million kids across the country. There are apps available for parents whose children have food allergies. including SPOKIN and ipiit can help them determine what’s safe to eat. A list of allergy-free candies can be found here.
Sterud says while her own children don’t have allergies, she knows some of their classmates do making it a good learning experience for them.
“I explain to him that some kids can’t have candy and a lot of the candies that are produced have nuts and dairy and wheat,” she said.
She hopes other households will participate to make the holiday more fun for all kids planning to dress up.
“I want kids to be kids and have fun and have great memories and participate, especially in such a fun holiday and be able to go out and show their costumes,” Sterud said.
A map of all locations in the US participating in the Teal Pumpkin Project can be found here.
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