Food Allergies at Summer Camp

My son is attending several day camps this summer. I was so pleased to receive the following letter from the COCA camp administrators:

We wanted to let you know that we will be supplying snacks for your children during this camp due to a camper's serious allergies to multiple food ingredients. It is important that the children come without snacks for the day so that this camper is not in any danger of being exposed to these life-threatening allergens.

Different camps have different levels of accommodations. At the Metro Theater camp he attended last week, I was so pleased to hear his lead counselor talk to some other parents about how they manage food allergies. For this camp, I packed a lunch and snack for him every day so I was a little more concerned that some kids would have nut products in their lunches.

His counselor said that they check everyone's lunches and if they are safe, say to the child, "Okay... you can sit with Tanner today." Then, they make sure everyone washes their hands before AND AFTER lunch.

The session was without incident!

It's great that more and more camp programs are taking a proactive approach to food allergies. It's the way of the future!

Separate or Equal

Dear Camp Parents,

We have a child with a sever food allergy. For the safety of this child, we ask that everyone refrain from bringing snacks from home. We will provide the same safe snacks for everyone for the remainder of the camp session.

Thank you for understanding,
Your Counselors

Isn't that nice?! The whole snack issue was a cause of concern for me as I enrolled both our kids in summer camps this year. And although I did not ask for this accommodation, I was happy that the camp administrators took the initiative to do it themselves. I was effusive in my thanks! Of course, the next day my daughter innocently provided additional insight into how it all came about:

T. and I had to sit by ourselves during snack time because all the other kids wanted our Safe Snacks too. Now we sit all together.

Hey, whatever works!