Time for Teal: Allergy-Safe Trick or Treating with the ‘Teal Pumpkin Project’ Gets Bigger and Better!

For most kids, Halloween is all about costumes and candy, but some families have to worry about real scares for our food-allergic ghosties and goblins. Last year, the Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) group as well as Kids with Food Allergies (KFA) promoted a national “Teal Pumpkin Project” campaign to promote non-food Halloween treats and it was a fantastic success. Participating households place a teal-painted pumpkin on the porch to show kids and parents that they’re offering a safe place to trick-or-treat. The media picked up the story and word got out!

The project is a fantastic way to raise awareness, help food-allergic kids enjoy the full spirit of the holiday, and make your fall decor extra-spiffy! These teal pumpkins are so stylish, they’re becoming very trendy. To join in, you commit to handing out safe toys like stickers, bracelets, pencils and vampire teeth instead of candy for Halloween and then paint a teal pumpkin to place on your porch. It can be super-simple, elegant and refined, or carve a painted jack o’ lantern if you like!   Inspired, we added some fun non food treats to our October, Halloween themed subscription box for kids with food allergies this year like a glow in the dark jewelry set, tattoos and spider rings along with curated allergy free food treats (a top 8 allergen free version and a peanut and tree nut free version).

So we are on board with Teal!  As a matter of fact, AllerMates is a big fan of the color Teal!  It’s the color we chose when designing our new website over a year ago as well as the color used in the new packaging of our health alert bracelets and medicine cases available at CVS Health stores.  A total coincidence!

We saw some amazing creativity last year, and we’d love to see your teal pumpkins too, so we’re giving away 10 prizes in exchange for pictures!! Send images of your teal pumpkin to contest@allermates.com and you’ll be entered to win!  (10/26/15-10/31/15)

We hope you’re as excited about the Teal Pumpkin Project and it’s potential impact on safety as we are!

Iris