In 2019, 6-year-old Zacky Muñoz was eating his usual lunch of pasta, salad, and breadsticks at his school cafeteria in Pasadena, California. “I suddenly felt a weird feeling—it was like a fight-or-flight response, an alarm inside my body telling me I was in danger,” he says. “I turned my breadstick around, and I saw sesame seeds.”

Muñoz, who is allergic to nuts, sesame, and other foods, was having a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction; the breadsticks, part of an approved allergy-safe meal, did not usually contain sesame seeds. Muñoz went to the school nurse’s office, where he vomited, itched, and felt his throat begin to swell. The nurse administered an EpiPen, or an epinephrine auto-injector, and called 911. Without fast access to the drug, Muñoz could have died.

In the U.S., 33 million people have food allergies, including one in 13 children—or about two per classroom—but training and resources, including easy access to epinephrine in an emergency, are not guaranteed. Not long after that first anaphylactic reaction, Muñoz, now 14, sat down with his mother, Priscilla Hernandez. “I asked her, "Hey, how can we create change? How can we make life safer?” he recalls. Hernandez, who has a background in nonprofits and worked in government for a brief period, mentioned the possibility of making new laws. Muñoz was stunned. “I only thought big, powerful people could make laws,” he says. “The idea that an everyday kid like me could make a law? I was instantly hooked.”

Over the next few years, Muñoz and Hernandez helped conceptualize, draft, and lobby for three bills to be introduced into the California legislature. The Zacky Bill, passed in 2022 when Muñoz was 10, required the California Department of Education to provide school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools with a centralized guide to food allergy safety. The Muñoz SAFE Act, passed in 2023, required schools to store epinephrine auto-injectors in accessible locations—not locked away in nurses’ offices, for example—and train staff to administer them each year. Lastly, in 2024, Muñoz helped introduce the Zacky FAST Act, which proposed replacing references to epinephrine auto-injectors with epinephrine delivery systems, opening the door for schools to adopt newer options like Neffy, a nasal spray and the first FDA-approved needle-free version of the drug. (The bill died in committee, but another bill incorporating elements of it was later passed into California law in October.)

Muñoz is also working with advocates in other states, including Idaho and Georgia, to explore introducing similar bills. In 2025, Florida also passed legislation incorporating concepts parallel to portions of the Muñoz SAFE Act. “We can help people navigate this whirlwind, because there's not a basic roadmap for those trying to create legislative change,” he says. His nonprofit, the Zacky Project, continues to support protections for those living with allergies, asthma, and related health conditions. “One of my big dreams is for there to be a cure for food allergies,” Muñoz says. “I want to be a part of that.” 

In December 2025, Muñoz was named a TIME for Kids Service Star, our sister publication’s program highlighting young people making a positive impact.