Chipotle, McAlister’s Deli and others offer Nurses Week 2026 freebies

National Nurses Week rewarded the quickest readers this year: Chipotle tied its biggest giveaway to the May 6-12 window, offering up to $2 million in free Chipotle through free entrée e-gift cards for up to 100,000 healthcare workers and 100,000 teachers, with winners randomly selected and verified through ID.me. The chain also said on its healthcare-worker microsite that it was serving up $1 million in free Chipotle in honor of Nurses Appreciation Week, a sign that the brand treated the moment as a major national promotion rather than a token thank-you.

The timing mattered. The American Nurses Association says National Nurses Week runs every year from May 6 to May 12, ending on Florence Nightingale’s birthday, and the American Nurses Enterprise marked the 2026 celebration under the theme “The Power of Nurses™.” The ANA also said 2026 fell in its 130th anniversary year, which gave this year’s observance extra institutional weight. National Student Nurses Day landed on May 8, while National School Nurse Day fell on the Wednesday inside the week, giving schools and families two more ready-made moments to show appreciation.

McAlister’s Deli took a simpler route. From May 4 to May 8, nurses and teachers could get a complimentary sweet or unsweet tea at participating locations. It was a quieter offer than Chipotle’s national sweepstakes-style giveaway, but also the easier one to claim: no entrée order, no points system, just a free drink at the counter.

For anyone building a Nurses Week thank-you plan, the smartest move was to pair the biggest freebies with the least friction. Chipotle’s offer required ID.me verification and a random selection, so it was the headline grabber. McAlister’s gave a straightforward in-store perk. Together, they showed where the value was this year: not in lavish gifting, but in well-timed, low-ceremony gestures that made it easy to say thank you to nurses, teachers and the healthcare workers who carried the week’s biggest promotions.