Raising Awareness, Making an Impact
- Features
- Siblings and Food Allergies
- Talking to Teens About Food Allergies
- Last Minute Reminders for Valentine's Day Classroom Parties
- Anaphylaxis Do's and Don'ts
- Survey to Measure Economic Impact of Food Allergy
- What's In Your Drink?
- Be Cautious During Holiday Dinners
- Halloween with Food Allergies
- Preparing Your Child for a New School Year
- Back to School Time
- Food Allergy and Nutrition
- Traveling Tips
- Dining Away from Home With Food Allergy
- Eczema and Food Allergies
Food Allergy Awareness Week (FAAW) takes place this year May 13-19. Every act that raises awareness during this week makes an impact.
Over the years, we’ve heard from many wonderful families about the various ways in which they celebrated FAAW.
Here are some additional suggestions for raising awareness using the resources FAAN provides, with thanks to the families who have provided some of these creative ideas:
Children:
- Help children create food allergy awareness posters using poster board and markers. Posters could incorporate messages about staying safe, watching out for each other (such as the messages found in our Be a PAL: Protect a Life From Food Allergies program), or listing the top eight food allergens. This has even be done as a contest. Then get the principal’s permission to hang the posters in the school hallways to show off the student’s work.
- Make arrangements with your child’s teacher for a special storytime with a children’s book about food allergy. (More than two dozen children’s book titles are available through our online store.) Either you or your child can read it out loud to the class and answer questions at the end.
- Print out the activity and coloring sheets provided online, make copies, and send them to your child’s teacher to distribute. Kids can have fun while learning at the same time.
- Hand out food allergy awareness stickers and pencils to youngsters.
- Help your child bake cookies or make lemonade to sell as a fundraiser for food allergy research, education, awareness, and advocacy programs. Encourage your child to talk to customers about food allergies.
- Ask your teen’s principal if your teen can write and contribute a public service announcement about food allergies to be included in the morning school announcements, or in a school bulletin or newsletter.
Adults:
- Make a presentation about food allergies to your child’s school or at your workplace. There’s a good chance that someone will learn something new about food allergies or that you can clear up some common misconceptions about food allergy.
- Form a team for FAAN’s Walk for Food Allergy, or participate in the Walk program virtually with our online Walk. These events not only raises funds for vital programs at FAAN, but it raises awareness through its thousands of participants.
- If you have a FAAN T-shirt, tote bag, or thermos, use it often. By having it visible, you’re raising awareness, and these types of items make great conversation starters, giving you a chance to educate yet another person about food allergies.
- Contact your local media and share your food allergy story. Let reporters know this is an important issue that affects all of us.
Check out our YouTube channel and share the videos. One such video is designed to train restaurant staff about food allergies; share it with the manager of your favorite restaurant, and ask that he or she share it with colleagues. You could do the same with the “Managing Food Allergies in the School Setting” video, which can be sent to your local educators.
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