The spirit of Halloween is alive in Celebration and for it to be enjoyable by everyone, more and more families are putting teal pumpkins on their porch.

  • More families are putting teal pumpkins on their porch
  • Those will food allergies can find allergy-friendly treats at the homes
  • The goal is to keep trick-or-treaters safe

It's a way to let those with food allergies know they can find allergy-friendly treats in their home.

Emilie Buckley and her family take part in the teal pumpkin project every year.

“We also give out things like pencils, stampers, temp tattoos, we have used allergy free candy in the past,” she said. “So for example ones that don’t contain dairy or peanuts.”

While Buckley’s three-year-old Zelda doesn’t have any allergies, she has a younger brother with a severe nut allergy and saw how hard it was for him to go trick-or-treating growing up.

“I asked every time I came up to a door, 'do you have candy with nuts in it or could you just give me the stuff without nuts,'" Jay Forsythe said. "But after a while I would just take everything and sort it out later. This ended up in me getting a lot less candy than I thought I did at the end of the day.”

Buckley said she plans ahead by looking for candy that is peanut and gluten free. She also checks ingredient labels to see if the candy was produced in a facility with nuts.

For this family keeping trick-or-treaters safe is the goal.

“I think a lot of people who don’t have a food allergy family member they don’t realize it’s not just an upset stomach it’s a trip to the hospital,” Buckley said. “You want to make sure to do everything you can to make it a safe Halloween for everyone.”

If you want to be part of the Teal Pumpkin Project and don’t have a teal pumpkin you can print signs out from FARE, the Food Allergy Research & Education and place it outside of your home.

For more information on the Teal Pumpkin Project, click here.