Allie the Allergic Elephant helps children learn about food allergies and how to be a good friend when you can't share snacks. Allie explains peanut allergies in a way that parents, teachers and children themselves can talk about allergies and understand them better.
Nicole Smith is the author of "Allie the Allergic Elephant: A Children's Story of Peanut Allergies" and "Cody the Allergic Cow: A Children's Story of Milk Allergies" and "Chad the Allergic Chipmunk: A Children's Story of Nut Allergies." She became interested in writing a children's book on peanut allergies after discovering her son, Morgan, has life threatening peanut allergies.
Her books on milk and nut allergies followed, and she has several other books in the planning stages.
She is the Founder of the Web site, Allergicchild.com, supporting families and communities dealing with severe food allergies.
Nicole was raised on several military bases, but has called Colorado Springs home for many years. She graduated from George Washington University in Washington, D. C. and went on to work in the field of finance for several years.
She and her husband, Bob, own Allergic Child Publishing Group, the publishing company for "Allie," "Cody" and "Chad."
Nicole has served as Treasurer for the non-profit organization, Kids With Food Allergies, Inc. and has helped school districts across the United States manage food allergies and create safe environments for food allergic children.
In Colorado, Nicole was the driving force to get Senate Bill 09-226 introduced and passed into law requiring all school districts to have a policy to keep food allergic children safe at school. Two years of meeting with senators, representatives and board members of the department of education culminated in the bill being signed into law by Governor Bill Ritter during Food Allergy Awareness Week in 2009.
Nicole is currently serving on the Food Allergy Initiative (FAI) Advocacy Steering Committee to help build a strong nationwide presence for the food allergy community in the public policy arena, and to actively seek to increase federal funding for food allergy research. Additionally, she participates in the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) Support Group Advisory Council.
