Downtown gardeners fund scholarship

Put together some rich Missouri soil, concerned downtown merchants and students in need of education funding, and what do you get?

The Downtown Merchants Association Scholarship Garden.

It is another invention of a group of business leaders who have shown again and again how much they care for Cape Girardeau in every respect, not just its downtown economic climate.

The agricultural part of the Scholarship Garden, which will provide a scholarship to Southeast Missouri State University, didn't actually take place downtown last summer, which was its first.

It is the brainchild of downtown resident Bill Dunn, who asked his parents to help out. His father, Alvin Dunn of Whitewater, Mo., raised the vegetables on his land, even providing the plants. His mother, Charlotte Dunn, contributed aprons and baby blankets she made for the sales.

Little wonder the energetic Dunn would come up with the idea and recruit his parents to help. He is a supporter of downtown and of education, graduating from Southeast and actively involved in the Downtown Neighborhood Association, the Downtown Merchants Association and Old Town Cape.

As he planned, a market was held each week during the summer at the downtown pavilion -- across from Hutson's Fine Furniture Store -- where shoppers eagerly snapped up the fresh produce and homemade goods. The garden raised $700 which will go toward the scholarship fund.

But things will be a little different this year, and many more people are coming on board.

The vegetables will be grown downtown in an alley between Independence and Merriwether streets. Volunteers will build an elevated garden and grow the vegetables themselves. SEMO Building Supply has committed to providing some material for a lighted sign.

Wooden barrels, dirt, gravel, wood, fertilizer, hoses, landscaping blocks, mulch and garden tools are among supplies still needed.

The volunteer list already includes Tom Neumeyer, Cathy Mecham, Levin and Lisa Letner and Doc Cain. They join Dunn, Chuck Ross and Megwyn Sanders, who were volunteers last year.

Hats off to the Dunn family and the other volunteers. Surely their selfless giving will benefit a young man or woman who hopes to improve through education.