The family of a 13-year-old girl from Idaho has established the Reese Strong Foundation to help raise awareness of the dangers of food allergies.
Mom Heather Langer recalled that Reese never let her condition inhibit her enjoyment in life. She was celebrating with her cheerleading teammates when she had an anaphylactic reaction from a dessert she thought had safe ingredients.
According to the Reese Strong Foundation official site, the teenager had always had nut allergies. Because of this, Reese spent a great deal of her childhood learning about ingredients, especially the ones that could be hiding in the food.
While she was careful about what to eat, Reese tried baklava at the party with her schoolmates and parents in May 2021. Reese was told baklava was like a honey pastry, but she was not aware it contained finely-crushed walnuts within the crust.
Reese's Allergy Escalated Quickly
Heather told KTVB7 that they gave Reese Benadryl and injected an EpiPen when her body started reacting to the walnuts. However, the mother sensed that this reaction was different from her other allergy episodes, so they left the party and drove to the emergency room, only three minutes away.
However, within those three minutes, Reese lost consciousness as her airways narrowed, which prevented her from breathing well. She stayed in a coma for four days, but the family was told Reese no longer had brain activity.
One year after Reese's death and her mom established the foundation with hopes of preventing more deaths by educating families and the public about the risks of food allergies. The foundation also hopes to raise money to provide families with EpiPens, which cost more than $670 a pack.
Heather decided on the name Reese Strong because it was what her friends kept tweeting when her daughter was still in a coma. Reese Strong Foundation held its first major fundraising event, a school fun run at the Eagle Middle School, in September 2021. The event was well-attended by her schoolmates, and the rest of the community in their town in Idaho also stepped up.
The fun run will be mounted for a second time this May. The foundation is also planning to host a yearly golf tournament and other events to sustain its capacity to help other kids with food allergies. Heather said they would also distribute flyers at schools across their town.
National Food Allergy Awareness Week in Idaho
Meanwhile, as much as Heather has been doing her work to talk about food allergies, she also found out that Idaho does not commemorate National Food Allergy Awareness Week. She then wrote a letter to Gov. Brad Little, who recently declared that May 8 to 14 will also be Food Allergy Awareness Week in Idaho, per Snack Safely.
Heather said that working on the foundation has helped her process the grief of losing her daughter. The foundation's activities allow her to meet Reese's friends to share memories. She has also talked to other parents about going through similar experiences.
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