Catawba boy’s favorite snack to be donated across the country

Children across the country are going to get a delicious snack, donated in the name of a little boy no longer here to enjoy it himself.

Just weeks before Harlan Sullins, then 3, died from a rare brain tumor, his family and hundreds of other people worked with California-based children’s food company Plum Organics to resume production of Harlan’s favorite food, a raspberry-oatmeal-swirl pouch that had been discontinued.

The company offered to do a special run of the product, free of charge, and in the meantime sent every pouch it could find to the boy’s Catawba home.

Plum Organics created a special label for the new oatmeal pouches. The front bears Harlan’s face on a superhero body, and the back has a special message for Harlan from his “long-distance friends” at Plum, including the company’s CEO and “Chief Dad,” Neil Grimmer.

“You’re our hero,” the message reads. “We sprinkled some love in every pouch.”

On Oct. 25, after his parents had exhausted all treatment options, Harlan died..

But just as the Sullins family is working to carry on Harlan’s legacy through a nonprofit called “Harlan’s Heroes,” Plum Organics didn’t want to give up on Harlan’s Oatmeal.

On Friday, the company announced that Harlan’s parents decided to donate all 5,000 pouches to facilities across the country that help families of children battling diseases like Harlan did during his short life.

A company spokeswoman said Plum Organics was looking for more ways to support Harlan’s Heroes, which the Sullins family hopes to have up and running in a few weeks.

Harlan’s mother, Jacki Sullins, took to the Harlan’s Heroes Facebook page on Thursday night to express her gratitude to the company.

“The world is going to know Harlan, his face, his story and most of all, his testimony,” she wrote. “(Plum Organics) put Harlan first like only a family would and will forever hold an enormous place in our hearts, right beside the piece that is missing, that Harlan stole when he left this earth.”

This story was originally published December 19, 2014 at 6:48 PM with the headline "Catawba boy’s favorite snack to be donated across the country."