That was six-year-old Noah over the microphone at his first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby: he built and raced a SunButter car! We are so proud, and we’re especially thrilled his family shares their story. Go, Noah, go: you’re on a roll!
Noah makes friends easily and is very social with just about everybody. He has severe nut, dairy, egg and shellfish allergies. He and his family have eaten SunButter products since Noah was four years old. His family eats SunButter (and avoids nuts and nut butters) to keep Noah safe since he is very sensitive to nuts and even reacts with hive breakouts just by the nut protein touching his skin. His family believes it’s best to not to have Noah’s allergens in the house.
One of the big events for Cub Scouts every year is the Pinewood Derby. Noah and his dad, Kevin, thought long and hard about what theme to focus upon for Noah’s first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby car. Noah wanted to make the car something exciting and handsome and wanted it to be a brilliant blue color with orange flames coming off the wheels and he wanted great decals. He also wanted a theme for the car to represent something he likes.
A SunButter car is born
In the family garage, Noah and Dad had carved and sanded the rough pine block into a sleek low-profile car shape that satisfied them. Noah held his smooth, wooden, unpainted creation in his hands and said, “Wow… Dad this car is great!” Now the time had come to paint the car. They brought out the brilliant blue spray paint and painted the car. Then they took a break to let the paint dry and went back in the house. Dad and Noah were still wondering about the theme for the car. Noah pointed to the SunButter jar on their kitchen counter and said, “Dad, how about we make a SunButter car?” Dad looked at the “SunButter Natural” jar and examined the multi-colored label stuck fast to the jar. “Hmmm. That label would sure make a good decal. That is, if we trimmed it.” Dad and Noah took multiple SunButter Natural jars from their pantry (they buy multiple jars at a time to keep it stocked in their pantry), and they went to work carefully removing the sticky red, blue and yellow labels and then they trimmed out their SunButter label decals used for the car.
Noah and his SunButter car!
When the paint had dried, Noah and Dad carefully placed the decals that were created from the sticky label onto the car. Then Noah said, “Dad, we need to add the flames to the wheels, too.” Mom had bought some other car decals at the local craft store and the flame decals were part of that set. Noah and Dad placed the flame decals on the wheels and the car was finished. When they were finished, Noah again marveled at his car. “It’s a beauty,” said Dad.
Attention peanut allergy people
When the day came for the Pinewood Derby race, Noah and his fellow scouts had a fun time racing their car creations. Noah’s friends examined his SunButter car and they were very impressed by the attention to detail and the overall craftmanship of the car. Several scouts asked about what SunButter was and Noah told them. “It’s like peanut butter, but it’s made from sunflower seeds.” Later when the races had finished, Noah had a moment to grab the microphone from our cubmaster. Noah spoke into the microphone holding his SunButter car, “Attention please. If you have a peanut allergy you should make a SunButter car!”
Noah’s car didn’t place in the race, but what he did get was much more priceless: smiles and “oohhsss” and “ahhhs” from his friends.Noah was definitely proud of his creation and his parents realized the need for Noah to put something from his lifestyle into that creation.
And we think Noah has some incredibly supportive, nurturing parents. Lucky guy!
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Tags: childhood food allergies, children with food allergies, faan, nut-free lunch, nut-free snacks, peanut allergy school lunch, peanut butter alternative, sun butter, SunButter, SunButter nut-free, SunButter recipes, SunButter where to buy
