Small Steps this Food Allergy Awareness Week

Did you know it's Food Allergy Awareness Week and National Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month? There are so many people making wonderful progress in spreading food allergy awareness, and I truly appreciate their work. It's such an important part of keeping our children safe. 

But I have to be honest. It can also feel overwhelming. 

It's overwhelming to think about doing anything special during our already busy lives and hectic weeks. I suppose that's also true for parents of children in general, but when you have to cook EVERY meal EVERY day as a working parent, it sure takes time.

It might also feel overwhelming with all of the food allergy information we see on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If you're a parent of a child with food allergies, I suspect your social media feeds look just the same as mine.

And when you feel overwhelmed, isn't it easy to feel completely frozen and do nothing?

So I've decided to think about Food Allergy Awareness Week in a different way. Even if I don't have time to spread awareness in a BIG way, I'm still going to focus on the importance of my small efforts.

Because no matter how small your effort, you are still making a contribution. 

So, here are some of the small steps I'm taking this week to spread awareness: 

• Changing my Facebook profile picture to support food allergy awareness week.
• Sharing a few more food allergy related articles on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
• Thanking my son's teachers in emails for taking extra care to keep him safe while at school. I may even get myself together by the end of the week and send in a little card and gift!
• Spreading awareness in my day-to-day life. From encouraging my co-worker with severe food allergies to carry an EpiPen (yes, I know, this horrifies me!), to chatting about food allergies with my grocery store check-out person, any conversation about food allergies brings awareness.

AAFA, KFA, FARE and FAACT have some wonderful ideas to inspire all of us this week/month to spread food allergy awareness.  

What small steps will you take to spread awareness and keep our children safe?