What Kind of Community Do You Want to Live In?

After a holiday, gingerbread project in my son’s kindergarten class, my husband and I decided we want to switch from an Individual Healthcare Plan (IHP or IHCP) to a 504 Plan for our multiple food allergic son. My one-on-one meeting with the school’s 504 coordinator was scheduled for this past Thursday. Coincidentally, my meeting was in the very same week that Ammaria Johnson, a 7-year-old girl from Chesterfield County, Virginia, died from an allergic reaction to peanuts. Needless to say, it was a very stressful and emotional week.

Quite simply, my heart aches for Ammaria’s mother, family, the innocent student that gave her the peanut, the school representatives involved, etc. Ammaria’s death means something…it should cause us all to reflect…it should tell us that no one is immune, me, you, the school, even the parents of non-allergic children, etc. We all fail in some way at keeping our allergic children safe.

Before moving forward, I should step back and explain my son’s gingerbread project. Every year, the kindergarten class makes a gingerbread house before holiday break. As you can imagine, it consists of a vast array of allergy-ridden products i.e., a small ‘washed’ milk carton is used as the frame for the house, graham crackers are hot glued to the carton, a homemade, egg white frosting plus all the decorations of candy, chocolate chips, pretzels, etc. top the “fun” activity ~ “because this is what we have done every year.”

“Because this is what we have done every year.”

This saying haunts me because it speaks to the root of the food allergy problem: Change is Hard.

Change is hard whether it relates to sweets to celebrate birthdays, sweets to reward when the school fundraising goal is met, sweets for post bingo fun at Halloween, sweets for the classroom fall festival and sweets for the annual gingerbread house project, which wasn’t to eat, but this time we used food as part of the class curriculum.

For those of you who have heard me speak or read my articles or blogs you know I say, “We live in a society that socializes, celebrates and rewards with food.” Now with the gingerbread project I can say, “socializes, celebrates, rewards and crafts with food.”

Thankfully, being the detail-oriented person that I am, my husband and I were able to present our son’s teacher with the school district’s Allergy/Anaphylaxis Management Guidelines which clearly states under teacher responsibilities: “Reviews lesson plans to assure that there is no use of allergens in projects or rewards.”

Once the Guideline document was sent to his teacher, then efforts to make the project more safe began: research on safe candies, chocolate chips, pretzels and non-food items (pompoms, sequins, paperclips, etc.) were used for decorations and I, who pride myself on being someone to partner with and not avoid, made 15-cups of safe frosting for the morning and afternoon kindergarten classes.

Now we’re back to what I eluded to earlier, how we fail to keep allergic children safe, which brings me to a question I would like to pose: What kind of community do you want to live in?

Do we want to live in a community where anyone with a special need is considered a burden? What if it was your burden?

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Nelle Harper Lee wrote, “You never really know a man until you understand things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

I hear so often, “Why should the entire class or school need to make all of these changes, for only a couple of allergic kids?” Why? Because my friends, it’s the right thing to do. It’s that basic. These innocent children are allergic to the very thing that sustains our bodies – food. No child with a special need asked for it. Where is our empathy?

Let me share with you my fears about my son’s food allergies…they’re a shadow. They follow me wherever I go: when I drop him off at school, when we are at a holiday food gathering, when we attend a birthday party, when we have to walk through a doughnut social to exit church, when there are snacks after a soccer game and when a little girl or boy innocently eats a snack in front of my son at the park, etc.

My shadow is always with me.

My days ebb and flow where I am strong one day and weak the next. When a simple change in our routine puts my mind in overdrive thinking about how to keep him safe, happy, well adjusted and loved for the smart, funny and loving boy that he is. Not just known as the ‘food allergic boy.’

The kind of community I want to foster is where there is undeniable empathy for others, where people don’t feel attending to other’s needs, life threatening or not, are unreasonable. I believe we are placed on this earth to learn from one another, to make the effort to understand one another…it’s our responsibility to take care of one another.

Sadly, Ammaria’s mother now has a different shadow that will follow her.

I’ll say it again…

What kind of community do you want to live in?