A Man with a Purpose.

By Alejandra Owens, March 20, 2009 02:09 PM

AARP.org has a touching story about a Catalino Tapia, recipient of the $100,000 Purpose Prize, honored for launching a foundation of gardeners like himself that provides school scholarships for low-income Latino students:

Tending the homes of the San Francisco area well-to-do fills Catalino Tapia, 64, with pride. But nothing has made this Mexican immigrant prouder than the day his youngest son, Noel, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley law school in 1999. "I still cry whenever I talk about it," says Tapia, a gardener in Redwood City, California. "I was just pinching myself to be sure it was for real." But something even bigger happened that day. Tapia, who emigrated 40 years ago with just a sixth-grade education, started thinking of ways to give other Latino students the same opportunity his son had. Now he has another reason to be proud: Tapia received the 2008 $100,000 Purpose Prize in honor of his work launching the Bay Area Gardener's Foundation, which gives scholarships to disadvantaged Latino students.