The Lunch Lady graphic novels.

It was a chance encounter with his elementary school lunch lady in 2001 that gave children’s book author Jarrett J. Krosoczka the inspiration of a lifetime. He shared the story at a February 2014 TEDTalk in New York City.

Krosoczka turned that meeting into the inspiration for the “Lunch Lady” graphic novels, “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!"

Krosoczka says lunch ladies are indeed heroes, given that an estimated 30 million kids participate in school lunch programs across the country. In Escambia County, 66 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals.

“And the stories of heroism go well beyond just a kid getting a few extra chicken nuggets on their lunch tray,” he says. “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.”

One lunch lady told him the series made her feel like someone recognized that the work she does is important.

“Of course what she does is important,” he says “They’re feeding our children every single day.  Before a child can learn, their belly needs to be full.”

Who’s a hero now?