“I wanted to sit with my good, good friends, but I couldn’t,” the 10-year-old said. “If you’re a kid and you have a food allergy, it’s harder on you. You’re missing out on a lot of stuff other children can have. I always want to try peanut stuff.”

Mom Monica Glover said the family discovered Ellis’ peanut allergy when she was about 3. The tipoff: a skin reaction around her mouth after she was given food with a small amount of peanuts in it. “We were lucky to have discovered it that way. That was a mild reaction,” Glover said, and a doctor confirmed the allergy through tests.