Teal Pumpkin Project [How To]

Halloween is a fun fall holiday for kids, families and the community as a whole. The costumes are fun + silly + something we love to look back on as we grow older + remember the silly character we once dressed up as in Kindergarten. Lots of memories are made going door to door through our neighborhoods. But, for some kids, a night of trick-or-treating can be unsafe or exclusive for children with food allergies.

The Teal Pumpkin Project was created to help make trick-or-treating an inclusive night for kids with food allergies and other health conditions. Currently, 1 in 13 children in the U.S. have a food allergy. Much of the candy given out on Halloween contains one or many of the top 8 allergens. So, the Teal Pumpkin Project aims to offer non-food treats to include all children on Halloween night.

To participate in the Teal Pumpkin Project, you can offer a bowl of non-food items to your excited trick-or-treaters. Ideas for non-food items can be found here. One way to help keep kids with allergies safe is to offer your non-food treats in a bowl separate from your candy. Teal Pumpkin houses can still offer candy, the Project aims to include all kids through the non-food option.

Setting a teal pumpkin out on your porch lets kids and families know that you have an allergy-friendly non-food option for trick-or-treaters. Painting the pumpkin is a fun craft project for kids and adults alike. There are several types of paint that can work well for your pumpkins. You can use acrylic paint or spray paint to create your teal pumpkin. To make your project a fun experience to remember and to keep for following years, you can decorate a fake pumpkin with: rhinestones, flowers, buttons, glitter, rosettes, felt flowers and bows. The options are endless! Create something fun that your family will love.

Here’s a list of supplies that you could use to create your Teal Pumpkin:

Paint brushes
Foam brush
Foam roller
Teal Acrylic paint
Teal spray paint
Teal outdoor house paint
Shades of teal paint to create an ombre’ effect
Hot glue gun + glue
Accent ribbon for the pumpkin stem
Gold paint for the pumpkin stem
Vinyl polka dots
Painter’s tape to create stripes
Teal flower accents
Rhinestones
Teal felt flowers
Real pumpkins + gourds
Fake pumpkins
Ceramic pumpkins
Pumpkins with a light + Jack ‘o lantern face

The Teal Pumpkin Project hopes to make Halloween fun for all. A pumpkin painting party can be a great way for your community and neighborhood to get involved in this project. With 1 in 13 kids in the U.S. living with a food allergy, it is likely someone on your street has a food allergy. You can find allergy friendly recipes here if you are looking to offer safe food for your allergic friends at your painting party.

By participating in the Teal Pumpkin Project, you are creating an opportunity for allergic children to fully participate in a community event that often centers on candy that is unsafe for children with allergies. Something as small as a teal pumpkin or tiny trinkets could really brighten a child’s night. Maybe your non-food treats will be what the kids with food allergies are talking about in years to come, along with memories of that silly costume of course.

Lindsey Willson is a food allergy mom, vegetarian, and author to the blog Lindsey Lee & Co. She shares meal ideas for kids, moms + families and also has a passion for creating + making things beautiful.