Clayton Schools is celebrating its breakfast and lunch preparers Friday in a day marked as “School Lunch Hero Day.”

The district has celebrated "lunch hero day" since 2013, but said the Clayton School Nutrition Department deserves special acknowledgement this year. The department has done yeoman's work providing hundreds of thousands of meals to the south metro community while schools have been shutdown because of the coronavirus, the district said.

"In an effort to highlight and showcase our nutrition workers, we ask all stakeholders to consider honoring those individuals by mailing personal thank you notes to the school or school district, posting on social media, or create signs to recognize school nutrition professionals in your neighborhood," the district said in a message to residents on its Facebook page.