We're on vacation for a couple of weeks and internet will be intermittent, so I'm offering up some older posts I hope you'll enjoy. This one's from November, 2007.
See this man? His name is Catalino Tapia. He's a 63-year-old gardener. He lives in Redwood City, CA and works maintaining trees and gardens in San Francisco.
He's also a philanthropist. Read about him here:
"Catalino Tapia [came] from Mexico ... 40 years ago with a sixth-grade education and only $6 ... He became a legal resident and raised a family by working in a donut shop, a machine shop and then plant nurseries, before starting his own gardening business...
Tapia ... always had his eyes on the future…Even before his first child was born ... he was saving money for them to go to school.
Tapia's youngest son attended UCLA and then ... the University of California - Berkeley Law School. He's now a lawyer in Los Angeles...
Tapia wanted to do something to help the less-fortunate children in his community ... His son suggested Tapia start a foundation that would give scholarships to students ...
Tapia sent letters to his clients asking for donations ... [H]e raised $10,000 in two weeks. And the donations kept coming in, with $75,000 raised so far ...
[W]ith seed money from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and donations from his clients, the Bay Area Gardeners Foundation began giving scholarships in 2006, starting with five students. The scholarships themselves are like seed money, $1,500 each ...
The Gardeners Foundation ... does not ask if a student is documented. Four out of its nine scholarship recipients are undocumented. The foundation nearly doubled the number of scholarships this year ... "
I heard this story on NPR this morning; it's also been covered by the San Francisco Chronicle.
People like Catalino Tapia have my undying admiration. Instead of focusing on getting a bigger big screen TV than the neighbors, he helps send kids to school.
Since I posted this piece originally, the Bay Area Gardeners Foundation has put up a lovely and nifty web site: http://www.bagf.org/. Please visit.
