While out trick or treating, you may encounter a home displaying a teal pumpkin along with the traditional orange ones, but what does it mean?

A teal pumpkin is more than just a decorative item, it's a very important signal to parents whose kids have food allergies. The teal pumpkin is an initiative created by the Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) group to raise awareness of food allergies. Food allergies among kids are on the rise - gluten free, sugar free, peanut free, dairy free and others - and these kids must watch what they get while trick-or-treating.

According to FARE, 1 in 13 kids have some kind of food allergy. So offering them something different during trick-or-treating at Halloween allows them to still participate and get in on the fun!

To participate all you need to do is purchase a teal plastic pumpkin or simply paint an orange pumpkin teal and place it by the front door or wherever you'll be passing out candy. FARE recommends handing out the following items while displaying that teal pumpkin to kids that have food allergies:

  • bubbles
  • spider rings
  • glow sticks
  • pencils
  • stickers
  • finger puppets
boy in a pirate costume holds a bucket with inedible gifts
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If you participate and display a teal pumpkin and hand out non-traditional items to trick or treaters you can share that on the FARE website and that will allow those looking for teal pumpkins to better find you! Looking at the map there are several participants in East Texas already and we're hoping there will be more added soon too!

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