当我的第一本儿童书 When my first children's book was published
在2001年出版时 in 2001,
我回到了过去读小学的学校 I returned to my old elementary school
与那里的学生们交流成为一名作家 to talk to the students about being an author
与插画家的经历 and an illustrator,
当我在食堂里 and when I was setting up my slide projector
布置幻灯片投影仪时 in the cafetorium,
在房间的另一头 I looked across the room,
我看到了她 and there she was:
那位熟悉的食堂大妈 my old lunch lady.
她还在学校 She was still there at the school
她当时正在忙碌的准备着当天的午餐 and she was busily preparing lunches for the day.
于是我靠近她并与她打招呼 So I approached her to say hello,
我说：“珍妮你好！最近怎么样？” and I said, "Hi, Jeannie! How are you?"
她看到了我，我看以感觉到 And she looked at me, and I could tell
她认出了我 that she recognized me,
但又不确定我到底是谁，然后她对我说 but she couldn't quite place me, and she looked at me and she said,
“你是史蒂芬·克洛萨卡？” "Stephen Krosoczka?"
我非常惊讶，她还记得我姓克洛萨卡 And I was amazed that she knew I was a Krosoczka,
但史蒂芬是我舅舅的名字，他比我大20岁 but Stephen is my uncle who is 20 years older than I am,
从我舅舅那个年代开始她就在食堂工作了 and she had been his lunch lady when he was a kid.
然后她就开始跟我说她的孙子辈的事 And she started telling me about her grandkids,
这让我有些惊讶 and that blew my mind.
她已经有孙子孙女了 My lunch lady had grandkids,
那么她也就有孩子了 and therefore kids,
于是她就会在每天结束时离开学校？ and therefore left school at the end of the day?
我以为她住在食堂里 I thought she lived in the cafeteria
与勺子为伴 with the serving spoons.
我以前从未想过这些 I had never thought about any of that before.
于是乎，这次经历激发了我的想象 Well, that chance encounter inspired my imagination,
我便创作了关于食堂大妈的系列漫画小说 and I created the Lunch Lady graphic novel series,
漫画讲的是一位食堂大妈 a series of comics about a lunch lady
挥舞着鱼叉双节棍 who uses her fish stick nunchucks
打跑邪恶的机械人 to fight off evil cyborg substitutes,
校车怪兽和变异的数学参赛选手 a school bus monster, and mutant mathletes,
在每本书的结尾 and the end of every book,
她们都会用发网罩住坏蛋 they get the bad guy with their hairnet,
然后大声说道：“正义得到了伸张！” and they proclaim, "Justice is served!"
（笑声）（掌声） (Laughter) (Applause)
这很神奇，因为这个系列 And it's been amazing, because the series
在孩子们的阅读生活中十分受欢迎 was so welcomed into the reading lives of children,
并且他们给我寄了许多有意思的信件 and they sent me the most amazing letters
卡片以及画作 and cards and artwork.
我注意到当我出访学校时 And I would notice as I would visit schools,
食堂的员工们会以一种十分有意义的方式 the lunch staff would be involved in the programming
参与到项目中 in a very meaningful way.
从东海岸到西海岸 And coast to coast,
所有的食堂大妈都对我说着同样的话： all of the lunch ladies told me the same thing:
“感谢你把像我们这样的人塑造成了英雄” "Thank you for making a superhero in our likeness."
因为食堂大妈在很长一段时间里 Because the lunch lady has not been treated
在主流文化中并未得到友善的对待 very kindly in popular culture over time.
但它对珍妮意义重大 But it meant the most to Jeannie.
当书第一次出版时 When the books were first published,
我邀请她参加新书发布的午餐派对 I invited her to the book launch party,
当着在场的所有人面前 and in front of everyone there,
这么多年来她服务了的这些人 everyone she had fed over the years,
我给她了一件艺术作品和一些书籍 I gave her a piece of artwork and some books.
在这张照片之后的两年 And two years after this photo was taken,
她去世了 she passed away,
我参加了她的葬礼 and I attended her wake,
我完全没有为我会看到的东西做好准备 and nothing could have prepared me for what I saw there,
因为紧靠着她的骨灰盒的就是那幅画 because next to her casket was this painting,
她丈夫告诉我这幅画对她意义重大 and her husband told me it meant so much to her
因为我见证了她的努力工作 that I had acknowledged her hard work,
我见证了她的所作所为 I had validated what she did.
于是我想设立特别的一天 And that inspired me to create a day
在这一天里，我们可以重新感受那种 where we could recreate that feeling
在食堂里的那种感觉 in cafeterias across the country:
在校园食堂英雄日里，孩子们 School Lunch Hero Day, a day where kids
可以给他们的食堂服务人员带去惊喜 can make creative projects for their lunch staff.
同时，我与校园营养组织合作 And I partnered with the School Nutrition Association,
你们也知道大约超过三千万的孩子 and did you know that a little over 30 million kids
每天都参与了这个学校午餐计划 participate in school lunch programs every day.
着就想当于大约学校每年 That equals up to a little over five billion lunches
准备50亿份午餐 made every school year.
英雄般的事迹已经远远不止 And the stories of heroism go well beyond
一个孩子在他的餐盘中 just a kid getting a few extra chicken nuggets
多得到一些鸡块 on their lunch tray.
在加利福尼亚州有一位叫布兰达的女士 There is Ms. Brenda in California,
她时刻关注排在她的队里的学生 who keeps a close eye on every student that comes through her line
如果有任何事不对劲 and then reports back to the guidance counselor
她就会向指导顾问汇报 if anything is amiss.
在肯塔基州的食堂大妈们 There are the lunch ladies in Kentucky
她们意识到有67%的学生 who realized that 67 percent of their students
每天靠她们提供的伙食维生 relied on those meals every day,
而夏天放假时他们就只好饿肚子 and they were going without food over the summer,
于是她们改装了一辆校车 so they retrofitted a school bus
让校车变成了一个移动的食品站 to create a mobile feeding unit,
她们在社区里穿行 and they traveled around the neighborhoods
在那个夏天她们一共帮助了500个孩子 feedings 500 kids a day during the summer.
孩子们完成了一个最完美的项目 And kids made the most amazing projects.
我知道他们会的 I knew they would.
孩子们制作了汉堡包卡片 Kids made hamburger cards
卡片是用建筑用纸制作的 that were made out of construction paper.
他们把食堂大妈的大头贴 They took photos of their lunch lady's head
贴在我的那本关于食堂大妈的卡通书里 and plastered it onto my cartoon lunch lady
并且固定到牛奶盒上 and fixed that to a milk carton
还用鲜花装裱 and presented them with flowers.
于是他们制作出了他们自己的漫画书 And they made their own comics,
主演就是漫画中的食堂大妈 starring the cartoon lunch lady
以及他们现实生活中的食堂大妈 alongside their actual lunch ladies.
他们还作了比萨以表示感谢 And they made thank you pizzas,
每个孩子都在用建筑用纸做成的比萨饼上 where every kid signed a different topping
涂上了不同的配料 of a construction paper pizza.
对我而言，我被来自食堂大妈们的反响 For me, I was so moved by the response
所感动 that came from the lunch ladies,
因为有一位女士曾对我说： because one woman said to me, she said,
“在今天以前，我感觉 "Before this day, I felt like I was
自己在学校的一个最不起眼的小角落， at the end of the planet at this school.
我并不认为有谁会注意到我们” I didn't think that anyone noticed us down here."
另一位女士则说 Another woman said to me,
“你知道吗，我从中认识到 "You know, what I got out of this
我的所作所为是重要的” is that what I do is important."
的确，她在做着重要的工作 And of course what she does is important.
她们都从事着有意义的工作 What they all do is important.
她们每天为我们的孩子提供食物 They're feeding our children every single day,
在一个孩子能学习之前 and before a child can learn,
他的胃需要填饱 their belly needs to be full,
而这些工作人员 and these women and men
都奋斗在创造一个富有教育的社会 are working on the front lines to create
的前线 an educated society.
因此我希望 So I hope that
大家不必等到校园食堂英雄日 you don't wait for School Lunch Hero Day
才对食堂员工表达你的谢意 to say thank you to your lunch staff,
并且我希望大家能记住 and I hope that you remember
一句谢谢所具有的强大力量 how powerful a thank you can be.
一句谢谢可以使生活发生改变 A thank you can change a life.
它改变了接受它的人的生活 It changes the life of the person who receives it,
也改变了 and it changes the life of the person
表达它的人的生活 who expresses it.
谢谢大家 Thank you.