Jarrett J. Krosoczka: Why lunch ladies are heroes

150,513 views ・ 2014-08-20

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:12
When my first children's book was published
0
12900
1670
00:14
in 2001,
1
14570
1723
00:16
I returned to my old elementary school
2
16293
2213
00:18
to talk to the students about being an author
3
18506
1940
00:20
and an illustrator,
4
20446
1716
00:22
and when I was setting up my slide projector
5
22162
2733
00:24
in the cafetorium,
6
24895
3205
00:28
I looked across the room,
7
28100
2048
00:30
and there she was:
8
30148
2611
00:32
my old lunch lady.
9
32759
1844
00:34
She was still there at the school
10
34603
1967
00:36
and she was busily preparing lunches for the day.
11
36570
2886
00:39
So I approached her to say hello,
12
39456
1644
00:41
and I said, "Hi, Jeannie! How are you?"
13
41100
1887
00:42
And she looked at me, and I could tell
14
42987
1570
00:44
that she recognized me,
15
44557
1727
00:46
but she couldn't quite place me, and she looked at me and she said,
16
46284
3085
00:49
"Stephen Krosoczka?"
17
49369
2761
00:52
And I was amazed that she knew I was a Krosoczka,
18
52130
2142
00:54
but Stephen is my uncle who is 20 years older than I am,
19
54272
3431
00:57
and she had been his lunch lady when he was a kid.
20
57703
3137
01:00
And she started telling me about her grandkids,
21
60840
2505
01:03
and that blew my mind.
22
63345
2705
01:06
My lunch lady had grandkids,
23
66050
1794
01:07
and therefore kids,
24
67844
964
01:08
and therefore left school at the end of the day?
25
68808
3255
01:12
I thought she lived in the cafeteria
26
72063
1743
01:13
with the serving spoons.
27
73806
873
01:14
I had never thought about any of that before.
28
74679
1943
01:16
Well, that chance encounter inspired my imagination,
29
76622
3732
01:20
and I created the Lunch Lady graphic novel series,
30
80354
3551
01:23
a series of comics about a lunch lady
31
83905
2177
01:26
who uses her fish stick nunchucks
32
86082
2598
01:28
to fight off evil cyborg substitutes,
33
88680
2902
01:31
a school bus monster, and mutant mathletes,
34
91582
3307
01:34
and the end of every book,
35
94889
1467
01:36
they get the bad guy with their hairnet,
36
96356
1506
01:37
and they proclaim, "Justice is served!"
37
97862
3754
01:41
(Laughter) (Applause)
38
101616
4253
01:45
And it's been amazing, because the series
39
105869
2607
01:48
was so welcomed into the reading lives of children,
40
108476
2893
01:51
and they sent me the most amazing letters
41
111369
2239
01:53
and cards and artwork.
42
113608
2157
01:55
And I would notice as I would visit schools,
43
115765
2474
01:58
the lunch staff would be involved in the programming
44
118239
2554
02:00
in a very meaningful way.
45
120793
2146
02:02
And coast to coast,
46
122939
1746
02:04
all of the lunch ladies told me the same thing:
47
124685
2095
02:06
"Thank you for making a superhero in our likeness."
48
126780
3895
02:10
Because the lunch lady has not been treated
49
130675
2769
02:13
very kindly in popular culture over time.
50
133444
3522
02:16
But it meant the most to Jeannie.
51
136966
2172
02:19
When the books were first published,
52
139138
1690
02:20
I invited her to the book launch party,
53
140828
2104
02:22
and in front of everyone there,
54
142932
1811
02:24
everyone she had fed over the years,
55
144743
1297
02:26
I gave her a piece of artwork and some books.
56
146040
2940
02:28
And two years after this photo was taken,
57
148980
2569
02:31
she passed away,
58
151549
1811
02:33
and I attended her wake,
59
153360
1087
02:34
and nothing could have prepared me for what I saw there,
60
154447
2839
02:37
because next to her casket was this painting,
61
157286
3488
02:40
and her husband told me it meant so much to her
62
160774
3566
02:44
that I had acknowledged her hard work,
63
164340
2418
02:46
I had validated what she did.
64
166758
2866
02:49
And that inspired me to create a day
65
169624
1892
02:51
where we could recreate that feeling
66
171516
2250
02:53
in cafeterias across the country:
67
173766
3015
02:56
School Lunch Hero Day, a day where kids
68
176781
1653
02:58
can make creative projects for their lunch staff.
69
178434
2858
03:01
And I partnered with the School Nutrition Association,
70
181292
2204
03:03
and did you know that a little over 30 million kids
71
183496
3128
03:06
participate in school lunch programs every day.
72
186624
1822
03:08
That equals up to a little over five billion lunches
73
188446
3352
03:11
made every school year.
74
191798
1507
03:13
And the stories of heroism go well beyond
75
193305
2386
03:15
just a kid getting a few extra chicken nuggets
76
195691
1987
03:17
on their lunch tray.
77
197678
1165
03:18
There is Ms. Brenda in California,
78
198843
1709
03:20
who keeps a close eye on every student that comes through her line
79
200552
2789
03:23
and then reports back to the guidance counselor
80
203341
2485
03:25
if anything is amiss.
81
205826
1350
03:27
There are the lunch ladies in Kentucky
82
207176
1424
03:28
who realized that 67 percent of their students
83
208600
2635
03:31
relied on those meals every day,
84
211235
1973
03:33
and they were going without food over the summer,
85
213208
2116
03:35
so they retrofitted a school bus
86
215324
2024
03:37
to create a mobile feeding unit,
87
217348
1752
03:39
and they traveled around the neighborhoods
88
219100
1235
03:40
feedings 500 kids a day during the summer.
89
220335
2799
03:43
And kids made the most amazing projects.
90
223134
2595
03:45
I knew they would.
91
225729
1050
03:46
Kids made hamburger cards
92
226779
1612
03:48
that were made out of construction paper.
93
228391
1994
03:50
They took photos of their lunch lady's head
94
230385
1901
03:52
and plastered it onto my cartoon lunch lady
95
232286
1808
03:54
and fixed that to a milk carton
96
234094
1793
03:55
and presented them with flowers.
97
235887
2486
03:58
And they made their own comics,
98
238373
2003
04:00
starring the cartoon lunch lady
99
240376
1361
04:01
alongside their actual lunch ladies.
100
241737
2223
04:03
And they made thank you pizzas,
101
243960
1936
04:05
where every kid signed a different topping
102
245896
1915
04:07
of a construction paper pizza.
103
247811
2959
04:10
For me, I was so moved by the response
104
250770
3600
04:14
that came from the lunch ladies,
105
254370
1979
04:16
because one woman said to me, she said,
106
256349
1879
04:18
"Before this day, I felt like I was
107
258228
2535
04:20
at the end of the planet at this school.
108
260763
2437
04:23
I didn't think that anyone noticed us down here."
109
263200
2375
04:25
Another woman said to me,
110
265575
1867
04:27
"You know, what I got out of this
111
267442
2548
04:29
is that what I do is important."
112
269990
2954
04:32
And of course what she does is important.
113
272944
2340
04:35
What they all do is important.
114
275284
2104
04:37
They're feeding our children every single day,
115
277388
3389
04:40
and before a child can learn,
116
280777
2459
04:43
their belly needs to be full,
117
283236
2530
04:45
and these women and men
118
285766
1778
04:47
are working on the front lines to create
119
287544
1923
04:49
an educated society.
120
289467
2203
04:51
So I hope that
121
291670
2770
04:54
you don't wait for School Lunch Hero Day
122
294440
1901
04:56
to say thank you to your lunch staff,
123
296341
2035
04:58
and I hope that you remember
124
298376
2048
05:00
how powerful a thank you can be.
125
300424
2846
05:03
A thank you can change a life.
126
303270
1995
05:05
It changes the life of the person who receives it,
127
305265
3202
05:08
and it changes the life of the person
128
308467
2284
05:10
who expresses it.
129
310751
1626
05:12
Thank you.
130
312377
2356
05:14
(Applause)
131
314733
4000
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7