The TED Talk speech that I decided to watch was titled, “Why
Lunch Ladies Are Heroes”. It was a speech given by author and illustrator
Jarrett J. Krosoczka. The speech was about how Jarrett went back to his
elementary school one day, and saw that the same lunch lady (Genie) he had
before was still working there. The lunch lady had obviously been working there
for some decades because when he asked if she remembered him, she got him
confused with his uncle. He pointed out that his uncle was 20 years older than
he was.
She started discussing her family with him, and he admitted
that he never thought about lunch ladies ever having a life outside of the
cafeteria. He talked about how that inspired him to write his book about how
the lunch ladies save the day. All of the lunch ladies thanked him for making a
hero out of their likeness. They explained that lunch ladies are not always
treated the best.
A significant event for the speaker would be when Genie
passed away. When Genie passed away, in her honor, he got together with the
school boards and created a day called “School Lunch Hero Day”, where children
made projects for their lunch staff in appreciation for the work that they do
on a daily basis. He partnered with the School Nutrition Association and they
explained that over 30,000000 children participate in school lunch programs
everyday.
The speaker relayed heart-warming instances by telling the
audience about the lunch ladies in Kentucky. He explained that they said 67% of
students relied on the lunches everyday, and that they were going without food
over the summer. The Kentucky lunch ladies redesigned a school bus to create a
feeding unit in an effort to travel around neighborhoods, during the summer, to
feed over 500 kids. He didn’t share this information to make people feel bad,
he shared it to inform us and encourage us to do better. Some lunch ladies felt
unappreciated and unnoticed before the holiday was created.
He explained that a “thank you” could change a life. He
inspired his audience to be courteous through his speech. He built trust
through his speech by truly coming off as being genuine. One statement he made,
that really hit close to home, was when he said, “Before a child can learn,
their belly needs to be full. Women and men are working on the frontlines to
create an educated society”. The speech helped me develop a deeper
understanding of the topic because I myself have always felt like a servant to
others.
I feel like my family, as a whole, has always played the
servant role in one-way or another. My grandmother was a nurse and a seamstress
and my other grandmother was a cook. My grandfather was a preacher, and my
other grandfather owned a restaurant. My mother was a lieutenant in the Army
and my father was an officer in the Navy. Both of them are also licensed real
estate brokers, and my mother is also a pro bono paralegal.
I was always told to serve others before you serve yourself,
whether it is at the dinner table, at work, or at school. I am glad that
Jarrett is encouraging others to do the same exact thing that my family and I
have been striving to do for centuries now. I hope the audience doesn’t just
take this into consideration when it comes to the lunch ladies, and uses
appreciation in every facet of life.
