Award Overview
The Turnip the Beet! Awards recognize outstanding summer meal program sponsors across the nation who work hard to offer high quality meals that are appetizing, appealing, and nutritious to children during the summer months.
Summer meals are critical in the lives of millions of our nation’s youth, whose risk for hunger increases during the summer months when they no longer have access to the school meal programs. Summer meal programs, including the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and the Seamless Summer Option (SSO), present the opportunity to help alleviate summertime hunger and positively impact children’s growth and development by offering nutritious meals. High quality summer meals provide daily energy and help make sure children are healthy and ready to learn when they return to school in the fall.
The Turnip the Beet! Awards were created to showcase sponsors who are going above and beyond to ensure that children in their care are receiving high-quality meals that are both nutritious and appetizing. These awards are aligned with USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins’ priorities to create new opportunities to connect America’s farmers to nutrition assistance programs, infuse the federal nutrition programs with new energy and vision, and strengthen strategies to encourage healthy choices, healthy outcomes, and healthy families.
2026 Turnip the Beet! Awards
We are pleased to share the 2026 Turnip the Beet! nomination packet.
- 2026 Turnip the Beet! Nomination Packet (.pdf)
- 2026 State Agency and FNA Regional Office Checklist (.pdf)
- Tips for Sponsors: Completing the Nomination Packet
2025 Turnip the Beet! Award Winners
The 2025 Awards winners are currently under review. Final selections will be posted once the review process is complete.
Resources for Serving High Quality Meals
We have an abundance of resources available to sponsors to help make summer meals more appetizing, appealing, and nutritious:
- The Nutrition Guide for Sponsors includes best practices and tips for serving high quality meals and incorporating local foods, as well as sample cycle menus.
- The Team Nutrition Resource Library has free nutrition education materials to help reinforce and complement the nutrition messages taught by serving healthful foods.
- The Farm to Summer Factsheet describes how to “bring the farm” to summer sites.