TED Talk: Jarrett Krosoczka

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.