Cousins’ food allergies turn high school student teal for Halloween

Teal is the new orange.

The Teal Pumpkin Project is a growing international campaign to offer nonedible alternatives to trick-or-treaters who have food allergies. In Modesto, a Beyer High School student is working to raise awareness of the effort, which hits close to home because two young cousins can eat nearly nothing in the way of candy.

Project participation is simple: People put out teal pumpkins, or just signs, to indicate they’re offering nonfood alternatives – perhaps spider rings or Halloween-themed pencils or erasers. If people take a minute to go a step further, they can register their homes on an interactive map created by FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education), which leads the Teal Pumpkin Project.

Arieana Mabugat, a senior, has been walking her neighborhood to drum up support for the project. She’s spoken to high school peers and grade school classes. She’s printing out fliers she hopes to distribute at Vintage Faire Mall. She’s getting the word out through social media.

“I’ve been telling people, say they usually buy four bags of candy to hand out. Instead of the fourth bag, why not little toys from dollar stores, or stickers or temporary tattoos?” Arieana said while visiting her cousins and their mom at their Salida home. “When I was younger and got toothbrushes or pencils, I thought, ‘Why?’ But as I got older and was introduced to this, I got thinking about it and it made a lot more sense.”

The Teal Pumpkin Project seems to be really taking off. FARE first promoted it nationwide in 2014, according to a USA Today article. “In 2015, about 1 million people visited the group’s website to get information, and about 10,000 of them – probably a fraction of participants – put their homes on the interactive map,” the story says. As of Thursday morning, the map showed three participating homes in Modesto, one each in Turlock, Newman and Ripon, and seven in Escalon. But Arieana noted that even she had not yet posted her home.

“This year, we would love to see a teal pumpkin on every block in the America,” Nancy Gregory, FARE’s senior director of communications, told The Bee in an email. “Parents of kids with food allergies can reference the map to see whether any homes in their neighborhood are participating, but we also encourage them to spread the word about the campaign before Halloween. They can do this by asking their homeowners association to send out an email encouraging participation, or they can post or hand out fliers (available from tealpumpkinproject.org) with information about the campaign.”

Nextdoor, the popular and private social network for neighborhoods, is one way to spread the word.

With a sheepish look, Arieana shared how she learned about the Teal Pumpkin Project. “I watch Disney Channel,” she said. “One of the stars of ‘Girl Meets World,’ August Maturo, I follow him on social media. He’s 9 and he has food allergies. He’s the face of the project. I saw that and thought, whoa, this is kind of perfect.”

Arieana’s 7-year-old cousin Jace Taa, a second-grader at Dena Boer Elementary in Salida, began having food reactions at about 7 months old, said his mother, Alaine Taa. When he began to eat the same foods as his big brothers, he developed rashes and open sores, and his face swelled up so that he couldn’t open his eyes or mouth and had to be fed with a dropper, she said.

Long story short, Jace can’t eat dairy, seafood, most vegetables and fruits, peanuts and tree nuts, or anything green. He’s also allergic to most environmental factors outdoors, and to pet dander, Taa said. He eats a lot of rice, soy and sweet potato snacks, she said, and takes multivitamin supplements.

“We did learn he likes tacos,” Taa said, but only Del Taco ones (he has a reaction to Taco Bell’s) and plain – just meat and shell. “He can take those down like there’s no tomorrow.”

Jace’s little sister, 3-year-old A’naiyah, has the same allergies, their mother said, but learning by raising Jace has made it much easier to keep her healthy.

Alaine Taa learned of Arieana’s efforts when the teen tagged her in an Instagram post. “She’s a very thoughtful person, so I wasn’t surprised she did it. But it’s touching, for her to think of it at her age. She’s a teenager, you figure these kids are just gonna run around, do what they want and think of themselves, but she always thinks about the little ones. She always thinks about my kids. She made me cry. I was actually out of town on vacation, and she made me cry on vacation.”

This story was originally published October 27, 2016 at 10:56 AM with the headline "Cousins’ food allergies turn high school student teal for Halloween."