Elementary students expecting the usual lunch — but discovered notes on bananas left by cafeteria workers

When it comes to working with kids, it’s not just skill and efficiency that matter but also attitude and personality. Kids learn through seemingly mundane interactions, and how people carry them while at home or in school matters. Stacey Truman, a cafeteria manager at Kingston Elementary School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, has been around kids for 18 years, back in 2022, per Huff Post. Apart from organizing and supervising meals, she ensures that there’s something more valuable for the kids to take with them. So, along with their food, the cafeteria worker decided to add a note to each banana for every student and it was so worth it. 

Having been in the school for several years and as a parent herself, Truman knew that her job went beyond feeding kids. “What I love most about my job is the kids. I treat them as if they were my own, whether it’s by offering encouragement, disciplining when needed, and, of course, feeding them,” she explained. Truman had seen the students grow, some even graduated and the bond with them was one-of-a-kind. She took it up a notch after experimenting with something wholesome. In 2018, Truman got the idea of leaving messages on bananas for her kids. Since she was working long hours and didn’t get to meet her kids before they woke up, she thought it would be nice to write them notes on simple items they carried to school. 

"I wouldn't see them for a week at a time. I would do it for them so they would know how much I love them,” the mom said, per Good Morning America. “When I made their lunches, I would write encouraging messages on their bananas, oranges, fruit cups or whatever I was packing for them that day. One day, my mom saw me writing them and said, ‘You should do that for the kids at your school,’” Truman recalled. Initially, she laughed it off as it seemed impossible to write for so many students with no time on her hands. However, one day, when she found herself sitting with time and a box of bananas, she thought of giving it a shot. 

“I wrote things like, ‘Never give up,’ ‘Your future is bright,’ and ‘Inspire yourself and others’ — the same messages I would write for my own girls,” Truman said. It became a habit and continued for years. Eventually, she got to making paintings of cartoons and other characters the children liked. These, too, had chat boxes with positive messages painted on them and were hung around the school premises. The students undoubtedly enjoyed receiving the motivation. They began to refer to the fruit as “talking bananas” because of the wonderful messages on them.

“Being a cafeteria worker is all about the kids. I hope they learn from me, but I learn from them, too. The biggest lesson they’ve taught me is how to love,” Truman remarked. She added that though being a cafeteria worker can be a “thankless” job, the reward lies in making a difference. “You never know what a child is going through at home. You might be the only person showing them kindness or feeding them that day. It’s about the kids,” she pointed out.