This Halloween, an advocacy group called Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) is encouraging Americans to start new tradition by painting a pumpkin teal and placing it on their porch as a sign to families managing food allergies that you have non-food treats available at your home.

FARE says a teal pumpkin is also a way to raise awareness in your neighborhood about food allergies.

According to a statement by the group, purchasing inexpensive non-food treats to hand out is a great way to include all children – even those with allergies --in trick-or-treating

“We hope that the Teal Pumpkin Project will be a tradition for years to come.”

Examples of non-food items include: glow bracelets or necklaces, pencils, markers, boxes of crayons, erasers, bubbles, mini Slinkies, whistles or noisemakers, bouncy balls, coins, spider rings, vampire teeth, mini notepads, playing cards, bookmarks, stickers, and stencils. Oriental Trading or Amazon are websites used by many parents to order these items (Visit smile.amazon.com to shop on Amazon and donate a portion of your purchases to FARE. Just search for “Food Allergy Research & Education”).

FARE offers a downloadable poster to post next to your door to notify visitors that you are handing out non-food items in support of all children with food allergies.

Download FARE’s Non-Food Treats Halloween Poster to show your support (This poster is formatted for A4 paper, but will also print on 8.5×11 and 11×14 paper using the “fit to page” setting.)