Food Allergy Awareness Week 2014

Class treat bags

Cynthia's idea to have our children's school celebrate Food Allergy Awareness Week proved to be a great one! We worked closely with school administration to organize a week that would raise awareness about food allergies.  The school held a teal free dress day during the week where any student wishing to participate could donate $1 to our selected organization.  We chose FARE to be the recipient of the funds raised.  Cynthia scheduled a registered nurse to speak to the middle school students and prepared food allergy posters and bookmarks to be placed around the school.  I arranged for food samples to be donated for staff awareness bags as I thought it would be helpful for them to sample food products geared for the food allergy population.  With generous samples provided by Sunbutter and Enjoy Life, I assembled staff awareness bags and class treat bags. The bags included the food samples, items sporting the teal awareness ribbon and recipes.  Our school nurse and librarian further assisted our efforts by filling the staff bags with food allergy handouts and reading food allergy books to the elementary students.  Starting the school year feeling overwhelmed and isolated, it was a great success to end the year on such a positive note.