It’s FARE Walk Season!
These are great community-building events for families affected by food allergies–there are few other large-scale events where you can meet other people with food allergies in your community. Plus, you can score great swag from allergy-friendly sponsors and raise money for food allergy research!
We went as Team Allergy Superheroes, of course!
Denver’s FARE Walk is early in the season–it was already a month ago, in fact. So to help you decide if attending your own FARE Walk is the right decision, I’m sharing pictures from ours! You can read about last year’s walk here.
There are usually lots of fun activities for kids, like this face painting (which Kal wanted on his arm.) Our walk also had some crafts, including woodworking projects donated by Home Depot. Many of these will be gone or used up after the actual walking part is over, so make sure you get to the Walk early to have time for everything!
Another fun thing for the kids is the presence of “celebrities.” Last year, Elsa and Anna were in attendance at our Walk. This year, Chase and Skye from Paw Patrol were there!
I didn’t get a picture this year, but you’ll also want to look at the sponsor booths BEFORE the actual walk. There will be TONS of free swag, but if you wait until it’s over, some sponsors may be out of samples!
Announcements were made before the actual walk. They sang the National Anthem and we heard from food allergy leaders in our local community.
Our kids decided sitting on the stage gave them the best view.
Then we warmed up to some great music
And then we were off!
One thing I wish FARE would do to improve their walks is to publish the length of the walks. I had assumed ours would be 2.25 miles, which is a loop all the way around Wash Park, and what we walked last year. My mom, who recently had knee surgery, decided the walk would be too long for her to attend. Right before we started off, they announced that there were two loops this year: a one-mile loop and a two-mile loop, and the different walks went in opposite directions around the park. My mom could’ve handled the one-mile walk and probably would’ve joined us if we’d had that information in advance. As it stands, if you want to know the length of a walk, you’ll need to contact FARE directly and inquire about your specific walk.
Another fun activity provided by FARE was a photo booth, with fun props to play with. The kids love these! (So do we, for that matter!)
After the Walk was the raffle! Our Walk had a scavenger hunt card that people were filling out before the actual walk, with questions we had to visit the sponsors to answer. If you completed the scavenger hunt, each member of your party got a raffle ticket. There were some great prizes to win!
We even donated some of our slap bracelets and liquid medicine bottles from Allergy Superheroes! And our little superheroes want to help hand them out, of course!
They actually drew one of our raffle tickets first, for one of the prizes we donated! I told them to draw again–and unfortunately, our number never came up again 🙁
One of the winners of our cool Allergy Superheroes Slap Bracelets! He was pretty stoked to wear it!
The raffle was the last official event of the walk. We hung out a little longer to watch the sponsor tents come down and chatted with friends, new and old. Meanwhile, our kids played.
I love this picture! Kal is quietly playing Epi-guitar, while Zax is ready with his Epi-Light-Saber!
Don’t forget about Swag! These are the goodies we walked away with! Between four people and lots of sponsors, we are stocked in allergy-friendly goodies for a while!
The FARE Walk is a great way to get involved in your local food allergy community! To find a list of FARE Walks and find the closest one to you, go here.
Happy walking!
