When my first children's book was published in 2001, I returned to my old elementary school to talk to the students about being an author and an illustrator, and when I was setting up my slide projector in the cafetorium, I looked across the room, and there she was: my old lunch lady. She was still there at the school and she was busily preparing lunches for the day. So I approached her to say hello, and I said, "Hi, Jeannie! How are you?" And she looked at me, and I could tell that she recognized me, but she couldn't quite place me, and she looked at me and she said, "Stephen Krosoczka?" And I was amazed that she knew I was a Krosoczka, but Stephen is my uncle who is 20 years older than I am, and she had been his lunch lady when he was a kid. And she started telling me about her grandkids, and that blew my mind. My lunch lady had grandkids, and therefore kids, and therefore left school at the end of the day? I thought she lived in the cafeteria with the serving spoons. I had never thought about any of that before.
Kada je objavljena moja prva knjiga za djecu 2001., vratio sam se u svoju staru osnovnu školu kako bih pričao kako je biti autor i ilustrator, i kada sam postavljao svoj projektor, u kantini, pogledao sam preko sobe, i ona je tamo bila: moja stara teta iz kantine. Još je bila u školi i bila je zauzeta pripremajući ručkove za taj dan. Prišao sam kako bih ju pozdravio, i rekao sam, "Zdravo Jeannie! Kako si?" I pogledala me, i znao sam da me prepoznala, ali me nije mogla smjestiti, i pogledala me i rekla, "Stephen Krosoczka?" I bio sam zadivljen kako je znala da sam Krosoczka, ali Stephen je moj ujak koji je 20 godina stariji od mene, i bila je njegova teta iz kantine kada je bio dijete, I počela mi je pričati o unučadi, i to me zapanjilo. Teta iz kantine imala je unučad, samim time djecu, i samim time odlazila je iz škole na kraju dana? Mislio sam da živi u kantini sa grabilicama. Nikad nisam razmišljao o tome.
Well, that chance encounter inspired my imagination, and I created the Lunch Lady graphic novel series, a series of comics about a lunch lady who uses her fish stick nunchucks to fight off evil cyborg substitutes, a school bus monster, and mutant mathletes, and the end of every book, they get the bad guy with their hairnet, and they proclaim, "Justice is served!"
Taj slučajni susret potaknuo je moju maštu, i stvorio sam strip Teta iz kantine, seriju stripova o teti iz kantine koja koristi svoje nunčake od ribljih štapića kako bi se borila protiv zlih zamjena kiborga, čudovišta iz školskog busa, i matematičara mutanata, i na kraju svake knjige, uhvate zlikovca mrežicom za kosu, i izjavi, "Pravda je poslužena!"
(Laughter) (Applause)
(Smijeh) (Pljesak)
And it's been amazing, because the series was so welcomed into the reading lives of children, and they sent me the most amazing letters and cards and artwork. And I would notice as I would visit schools, the lunch staff would be involved in the programming in a very meaningful way. And coast to coast, all of the lunch ladies told me the same thing: "Thank you for making a superhero in our likeness." Because the lunch lady has not been treated very kindly in popular culture over time. But it meant the most to Jeannie. When the books were first published, I invited her to the book launch party, and in front of everyone there, everyone she had fed over the years, I gave her a piece of artwork and some books. And two years after this photo was taken, she passed away, and I attended her wake, and nothing could have prepared me for what I saw there, because next to her casket was this painting, and her husband told me it meant so much to her that I had acknowledged her hard work, I had validated what she did.
I bilo je odlično, jer je serija bila tako dobro prihvaćena od strane djece, i slali su mi divna pisma, i razglednice i crteže. I primjetio sam kako sam posjećivao škole, da je osoblje iz kantine bilo uključeno u program na vrlo značajan način. I od obale do obale, sve tete rekle su mi istu stvar: "Hvala ti što si napravio superheroja koji sliči na nas." Jer teta iz kantine nije tretirana lijepo u pop kulturi kroz vrijeme. Ali najviše je to značilo Jeannie. Kada su knjige objavljene, pozvao sam ju na zabavu lansiranja, i ispred svih ljudi ondje, svih koje je hranila tokom godina, dao sam joj umjetničko djelo i neke knjige. Dvije godine nakon ove slike, preminula je, i bio sam na njenom bdijenju, i ništa me nije moglo pripremiti za ono što sam vidio ondje, jer pored njenog lijesa bila je ova slika, i njen suprug rekao mi je kako puno joj je značilo da sam priznao njen naporan rad, da sam potvrdio ono što je činila.
And that inspired me to create a day where we could recreate that feeling in cafeterias across the country: School Lunch Hero Day, a day where kids can make creative projects for their lunch staff. And I partnered with the School Nutrition Association, and did you know that a little over 30 million kids participate in school lunch programs every day. That equals up to a little over five billion lunches made every school year.
I to me inspiriralo da stvorim dan gdje bih mogao ponovno stvoriti taj osjećaj u kantinama diljem zemlje. Dan Heroja Školskog Ručka, dan kada djeca mogu napraviti kreativne projekte za osoblje iz kantine. I u partnerstvu sa Školskom Asocijacijom za Ishranu, i jeste li znali da preko 30 milijuna djece sudjeluje u školskim programima za ručak svakog dana. To je jednako otprilike pet milijardi ručaka koji se naprave svake školske godine.
And the stories of heroism go well beyond just a kid getting a few extra chicken nuggets on their lunch tray. There is Ms. Brenda in California, who keeps a close eye on every student that comes through her line and then reports back to the guidance counselor if anything is amiss. There are the lunch ladies in Kentucky who realized that 67 percent of their students relied on those meals every day, and they were going without food over the summer, so they retrofitted a school bus to create a mobile feeding unit, and they traveled around the neighborhoods feedings 500 kids a day during the summer.
Priče o herojstvu idu daleko iznad toga da dijete dobije nekoliko komadića piletine više na svom poslužavniku za ručak. To je gospođa Brenda u Kaliforniji, koja pazi na svakog učenika koji prolazi njenom linijom i onda javlja školskim savjetnicima ako nešto ne štima. Tu su i tete iz Kentuckya koje su shvatile da 67 posto njihovih učenika ovisi o tim obrocima svaki dan, i da će biti bez hrane preko ljeta, pa su preuredile školski bus kako bi stvorile mobilnu jedinicu za prehranu i putovale su naseljima hraneći 500 djece tijekom ljeta.
And kids made the most amazing projects. I knew they would. Kids made hamburger cards that were made out of construction paper. They took photos of their lunch lady's head and plastered it onto my cartoon lunch lady and fixed that to a milk carton and presented them with flowers. And they made their own comics, starring the cartoon lunch lady alongside their actual lunch ladies. And they made thank you pizzas, where every kid signed a different topping of a construction paper pizza.
I djeca su napravila najdivnije projekte. Znao sam da hoće. Djeca su pravile kartonske hamburgere od konstrukcijskog papira. Slikali su glave svojih teta iz kantina i ljepili ih na moje nacrtane i to pričvršćivali na kartone mlijeka i darivali im cvijeće. I stvarali su vlastite stripove, sa crtanom tetom iz kantine zajedno sa stvarnim tetama iz kantine. I radili su pizze zahvalnice, gdje je svako dijete potpisalo različtii nadjev na pizzi od papira.
For me, I was so moved by the response that came from the lunch ladies, because one woman said to me, she said, "Before this day, I felt like I was at the end of the planet at this school. I didn't think that anyone noticed us down here." Another woman said to me, "You know, what I got out of this is that what I do is important."
Za mene, ja sam bio tako dirnut odgovorom koji je došao od teta iz kantine, jer jedna žena mi je rekla, rekla mi je, "Prije ovoga dana, osjećala sam se kao da sam na kraju planeta u ovoj školi. Nisam mislila da nas itko primjećuje." Druga žena rekla mi je, "Znaš, to što sam dobila iz ovoga je da je ono što radim važno."
And of course what she does is important. What they all do is important. They're feeding our children every single day, and before a child can learn, their belly needs to be full, and these women and men are working on the front lines to create an educated society.
I naravno da je ono što radi važno. Sve što čine je važno. Hrane našu djecu svakoga dana, i prije nego dijete može učiti, trbuh im mora biti pun, i ove žene i muškarci rade na prvoj crti kako bi stvorili educirano društvo.
So I hope that you don't wait for School Lunch Hero Day to say thank you to your lunch staff, and I hope that you remember how powerful a thank you can be. A thank you can change a life. It changes the life of the person who receives it, and it changes the life of the person who expresses it.
Nadam se da nećete čekati Dan Heroja Školskog Ručka da bi rekli hvala vašem osoblju koje se brine za ručak, i nadam se da ćete upamtiti kako snažno može biti hvala. Hvala može promijeniti život. Mijenja život osobe koja ga prima, i mijenja život osobe koja ga izražava.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)