The Anaphylaxis and Food Allergy Association of Minnesota (AFAA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to educate, advocate, and to support those with food allergies.

AFAA's motto is: Taking the Fear out of Food Allergies. Severe food allergy reactions annually result in about 50,000 emergency room visits and the death of 150-200 people in the U.S. each year who inadvertently ate a bite of food that triggered a severe reaction called anaphylaxis.  Approximately 15 million Americans have food allergies. Of the more than 200,000 Minnesotans have food allergies, 60,000 are school children.  Not only are food allergies increasing, but they are becoming more severe and complex.

The motto of the Food Allergy Awareness Walk – AFAA’s largest fundraiser and the only walkathon funding Minnesota’s food allergy programs - is Hey Diddle Diddle – Help Solve the Food Riddle! 

Membership

AFAA associate membership now includes 4,500 families, doctors, nurses, dieticians, teachers, food industry professionals, and policy-makers: it is the largest regional food allergy support organization in the U.S.  AFAA encourages the development of local support groups, and provides affiliation benefits to groups adhering to its medical and fiscal standards. 

Membership is as simple as signing up to receive the free quarterly Food Allergy e-Magazine and email updates.

Operations

As a medically-based organization, AFAA receives guidance from its Medical Advisory Board, and as a 501(c)3 non-profit it is supervised by an operational Board of Directors. 

AFAA is a volunteer-run organization: it has no paid staff members or paid board members.  More than 350 volunteers implement AFAA’s many programs and projects each year, including AFAA’s Executive Director, who has donated over a decade of full-time pro-bono work to the organization.