Robert Harris doesn't see his acts as anything extraordinary. Working with the soil, Harris plants a seed and hopes something will take root.

"If you have a gift, you simply want to use it ... and see people have just a little bit of a better life," Harris said Monday after receiving the Dr. C. John Ritter Humanitarian Award for his work serving south Cape Girardeau.

For about five years Harris, who has lived in Cape Girardeau for about 30 years, has been one of the driving forces behind south Cape Girardeau's Community Garden Project. Harris, a Master Gardener, and others tend a garden in south Cape Girardeau that yields food for the elderly and poor and provides flowers to beautify that part of the city. The garden is on South Fountain Street, south of Highway 74. The plot of land used to contain homes but property-owners were bought out after the flood of 1993. The city owns the property and allows Harris to tend the garden there.

Harris, 52, drives a school bus for the Cape Girardeau School District.

The Ritter award is given out by the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. City Wide Celebration Committee at its annual Humanitarian Luncheon, held at noon Monday at the Osage Community Centre. The Ritter award honors a local resident or organization for their service to the community. It is named for Dr. C. John Ritter, a local physician who took part in medical missions to several countries for 10 years. He died in 2002.

"They don't have to be asked, they just use their God-given ability to do this," committee director Debra Mitchell-Braxton said of the Ritter recipients' humanitarian service.

Harris refused to take sole credit for growing the south Cape Girardeau garden and said "You never feel worthy" of being honored in such a way.

But Mitchell-Braxton and Dr. Bartalette Finney Sr., the luncheon's keynote speaker, stressed throughout the event that acts of humanitarianism are the key to keeping King's legacy alive.

"All of us have a responsibility," said Finney, a leader in the AME Church out of St. Louis. "Ours is to clean up the neighborhood in which we live. Change ... and we will begin to see America change."

In a message that emphasized the religious aspects of King's legacy, Finney said all Americans are connected, and all Americans bear responsibility for themselves, their fellow citizens and their country.

"You have the power, not only to move mountains, but to change the concept of the world," said Finney. He stressed that humanitarian acts come only when humans give themselves over as instruments of God, using King's example.

Other speakers included Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson and former state representative Mary Kasten, who read a prepared statement from U.S. Sen. Kit Bond. Bond was originally scheduled to attend the event but was stuck in another part of Missouri because of bad weather.

Attendance at the luncheon was slightly greater than at the morning's memorial breakfast. Organizers think wet weather had a negative impact on the morning audience.

msanders@semissourian.com

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