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When my first children's book was published

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in 2001,

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I returned to my old elementary school

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to talk to the students about being an author

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and an illustrator,

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and when I was setting up my slide projector

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in the cafetorium,

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I looked across the room,

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and there she was:

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my old lunch lady.

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She was still there at the school

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and she was busily preparing lunches for the day.

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So I approached her to say hello,

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and I said, "Hi, Jeannie! How are you?"

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And she looked at me, and I could tell

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that she recognized me,

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but she couldn't quite place me,[br]and she looked at me and she said,

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"Stephen Krosoczka?"

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And I was amazed that she knew I was a Krosoczka,

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but Stephen is my uncle who[br]is 20 years older than I am,

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and she had been his lunch lady when he was a kid.

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And she started telling me about her grandkids,

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and that blew my mind.

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My lunch lady had grandkids,

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and therefore kids,

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and therefore left school at the end of the day?

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I thought she lived in the cafeteria

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with the serving spoons.

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I had never thought about any of that before.

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Well, that chance encounter inspired my imagination,

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and I created the Lunch Lady graphic novel series,

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a series of comics about a lunch lady

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who uses her fish stick nunchucks

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to fight off evil cyborg substitutes,

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a school bus monster, and mutant mathletes,

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and the end of every book,

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they get the bad guy with their hairnet,

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and they proclaim, "Justice is served!"

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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And it's been amazing, because the series

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was so welcomed into the reading lives of children,

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and they sent me the most amazing letters

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and cards and artwork.

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And I would notice as I would visit schools,

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the lunch staff would be involved in the programming

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in a very meaningful way.

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And coast to coast,

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all of the lunch ladies told me the same thing:

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"Thank you for making a superhero in our likeness."

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Because the lunch lady has not been treated

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very kindly in popular culture over time.

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But it meant the most to Jeannie.

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When the books were first published,

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I invited her to the book launch party,

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and in front of everyone there,

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everyone she had fed over the years,

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I gave her a piece of artwork and some books.

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And two years after this photo was taken,

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she passed away,

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and I attended her wake,

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and nothing could have prepared[br]me for what I saw there,

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because next to her casket was this painting,

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and her husband told me it meant so much to her

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that I had acknowledged her hard work,

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I had validated what she did.

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And that inspired me to create a day

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where we could recreate that feeling

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in cafeterias across the country:

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School Lunch Hero Day, a day where kids

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can make creative projects for their lunch staff.

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And I partnered with the[br]School Nutrition Association,

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and did you know that a little over 30 million kids

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participate in school lunch programs every day.

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That equals up to a little over five billion lunches

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made every school year.

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And the stories of heroism go well beyond

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just a kid getting a few extra chicken nuggets

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on their lunch tray.

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There is Ms. Brenda in California,

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who keeps a close eye on every[br]student that comes through her line

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and then reports back to the guidance counselor

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if anything is amiss.

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There are the lunch ladies in Kentucky

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who realized that 67 percent of their students

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relied on those meals every day,

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and they were going without food over the summer,

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so they retrofitted a school bus

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to create a mobile feeding unit,

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and they traveled around the neighborhoods

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feedings 500 kids a day during the summer.

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And kids made the most amazing projects.

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I knew they would.

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Kids made hamburger cards

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that were made out of construction paper.

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They took photos of their lunch lady's head

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and plastered it onto my cartoon lunch lady

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and fixed that to a milk carton

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and presented them with flowers.

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And they made their own comics,

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starring the cartoon lunch lady

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alongside their actual lunch ladies.

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And they made thank you pizzas,

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where every kid signed a different topping

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of a construction paper pizza.

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For me, I was so moved by the response

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that came from the lunch ladies,

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because one woman said to me, she said,

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"Before this day, I felt like I was

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at the end of the planet at this school.

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I didn't think that anyone noticed us down here."

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Another woman said to me,

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"You know, what I got out of this

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is that what I do is important."

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And of course what she does is important.

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What they all do is important.

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They're feeding our children every single day,

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and before a child can learn,

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their belly needs to be full,

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and these women and men

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are working on the front lines to create

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an educated society.

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So I hope that

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you don't wait for School Lunch Hero Day

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to say thank you to your lunch staff,

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and I hope that you remember

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how powerful a thank you can be.

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A thank you can change a life.

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It changes the life of the person who receives it,

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and it changes the life of the person

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who expresses it.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)