Kym Whitley found an innovative way to ease the worries of parents with children who have severe food allergies by creating a new t-shirt line.
You’re probably wondering what in the world a new t-shirt has to do with protecting a child with food allergies, but Whitley has transformed the t-shirts into giant allergy warning notes.
In today’s day and age many parents have to drop their children off at a daycare or leave them with a nanny when it’s time to go to work. The problem with this is that it can be a challenge for nannies, sitters, and even family members to remember everything your child is allergic to.
The solution? Put it on their shirt where nobody can miss it.
The shirts include a space for parents to write in their child’s name along with a short list of the most common food allergies underneath the words “Don’t Feed Me.”
Parents can then check off which foods their child can not eat and even write in a few more foods in the blank spaces at the bottom of the t-shirt.
Whitley is selling the shirts for $10 on her website DontFeedMe.org with the help of her co-creator and friend Rodney Van Johnson.
Inspiration for the shirts came from a frightening mistake that her nanny made one day. Whitley’s son Joshua is allergic to peanut butter, but the nanny accidentally fed it to him anyway.
Luckily, the famous comedian was home and was able to rush to the rescue when she heard her child coughing.
The accident was an innocent one, but it reminded the worried mom that it’s a mistake that can easily happen when she isn’t around to do anything about it. So she created the t-shirts for her son and made sure he wore them to day care.
That’s when she discovered that there were more parents who had an interest in the “Don’t Feed Me T-Shirts.”
“The other parents were like, ‘Oh my God that’s great, we need that,” Whitley said.
And thus the line of t-shirts were born.
It’s not wonder that so many parents were interested in the new shirts considering the fact that over 3 million American children have sever food allergies according to the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The most common allergies for children, which are already listed on the shirts next to blank boxes for parents to check, include gluten, milk, peanuts, dairy, eggs, corn, and more.
Whitley hopes that the line of shirts will help prevent many of the accidents that happen every year where children are accidentally fed foods they are allergic too.
