The Let’s Eat Healthy Leadership Award celebrates initiative champions who advocate and take action to empower children, families and communities to develop lifelong healthy eating patterns.
Now in its sixth year, the award program recognizes champion leaders and organizations from diverse sectors and backgrounds that advance evidence-based nutrition education, dairy-inclusive agricultural literacy and access to nutritious foods that include milk and dairy. Their actions make a positive difference in the health of communities across California.
Award Eligibility
Dairy Council of California encourages the recognition of champions actively engaging in collaborative work that is furthering the collective impact of the Let’s Eat Healthy Initiative. We are seeking to elevate the unique expertise, lived experiences and innovative contributions of the Let’s Eat Healthy network.
We welcome nominations of champions who are activating the
Let’s Eat Healthy Initiative, amplifying science-based resources and tools available from Dairy Council of California / Let’s Eat Healthy and demonstrating measurable success in one or more of the following recognition categories.
Recognition Award Categories
Nominations must demonstrate unique and innovative approaches to furthering solutions that advance the focus areas of Let’s Eat Healthy in the following categories and sub-categories:
Nutrition Security Champion
- Increasing access to child nutrition programs.
- Fostering environments that support healthy eating, including advocating and engaging in strategies that support healthy food systems such as dairy-inclusive agricultural literacy education.
- Supporting equitable access to nutritious foods, including milk and dairy, vegetables, fruit, whole grains and lean protein, to support sustainable, healthy eating patterns across the life span.
Nutrition Education Champion
- Ensuring consistent, age-appropriate, evidence-based nutrition education resources are integrated within nutrition practices and interventions.
- Expanding evidence-based nutrition education to new locations and/or audiences.
- Utilizing culturally informed nutrition practices and nutrition resources.
- Integrating fundamentals of nutrition to support sustainable, healthy eating patterns as part of food systems education.
Award Criteria
- Nomination must align with at least one award category and sub-category: Nutrition Security Champion, Nutrition Education Champion.
- Nomination must demonstrate measurable success and impact of outcomes achieved within the selected award category and sub-category area(s). Description must include the following:
- The target audience.
- The strategy that was implemented.
- Dairy Council of California / Let’s Eat Healthy resources or expertise utilized.
- Key collaborators and contributions.
- Ways the outcomes were assessed.
- The impact on the target audience.
- Nominations must demonstrate utilization of Dairy Council of California / Let’s Eat Healthy science-based resources and/or expertise.
All submissions—including self, peer, team and organization nominations—will be accepted and eligible for consideration.
Submissions are due by 11:59 p.m. on December 1, 2024.