Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter celebrated his 100th birthday on Oct. 1, 2024. He is the longest-lived former president in U.S. history.
Carter served as president from 1977 to 1981. His political career included Governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and a state senator before that.
A Georgia native from Plains, beyond his work as president, Carter was best known for his dedication to philanthropy and community service.
In 1982, he founded the Carter Center, a nonprofit organization based in Atlanta dedicated to advancing and protecting human rights, improving health care, and strengthening democracy. Some of the notable accomplishments of the Carter Center include establishing a health care delivery system in thousands of communities in Africa, training health care personnel and volunteers to provide health education and distribute drugs, and implementing new public health approaches to disease control and prevention across Africa and Latin America. The Center’s work includes improving mental health care and diminishing the stigma against people with mental illnesses.
Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development,” according to a press release from the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
In 1984, Carter and his wife Rosalynn began volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, a global nonprofit housing organization that originated in Americus in southern Georgia. They became the public face of the organization.
The couple joined Habitat volunteers in 1984 for the first Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project in New York City. For 35 years, the Carter Work Project was an annual home-building event where Carter and his wife led volunteers for weeklong home construction projects for underserved communities. In 2023, Carter handed off the responsibilities to country musicians Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood.
Marie Garcia was just 6 years old when the Carters arrived in her New York City neighborhood for the first Carter Work Project. Her father George was a supporter of Carter, she said. He admired Carter’s dedication to human service and improving one’s community.
“I remember my dad telling me all about [the project], that it was the president and his wife and that they were really special people,” Marie said. “They cared about issues like this so that people who are impoverished wouldn’t have to flee their neighborhood … people wouldn’t have to flee the areas they grew up in and leave all the things they knew.”
When Marie and her father visited the work site, George encouraged her to approach the former president. Although the Carters were surrounded by security, she said, they let her through and allowed her to speak with Jimmy and Rosalyn.
“They asked me where I went to school, what my name was, if I had pets, just little kid things like that,” Garcia said. “I definitely went back to school thinking I was the coolest kid in town because I met a president.”
Garcia spent the past year volunteering with her local Habitat for Humanity branch. She said meeting the Carters inspired her to volunteer and dedicate her life to public service.
Beyond New York City, the Carters built homes in Chicago, Nashville, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. Georgia’s first Carter Work Project took place in Atlanta in June 1988. More than 1,000 volunteers built 20 homes over the span of one week in Atlanta’s Edgewood neighborhood, according to Habitat for Humanity. Volunteers with the Carter Work Project built homes across the state in Plains, Valdosta and Americus.
Kathy Ortwerth, the director of philanthropy at Habitat for Humanity North Central Georgia, said Carter’s involvement with Habitat expanded the reach and influence of the organization.
“There’s a misconception that Jimmy Carter started Habitat,” said Ortwerth, “but his influence certainly helped [Habitat] become what it is today.”
Georgia’s first Carter Work Project took place in Atlanta in June 1988. More than 1,000 volunteers built 20 homes over the span of one week in Atlanta’s Edgewood neighborhood, according to Habitat for Humanity.
For nearly 40 years, President and Mrs. Carter traveled the world as Habitat volunteers, helping build homes and improve the lives of those they served. The couple renovated and repaired 4,390 homes alongside more than 104,000 volunteers in 14 countries.
In 1990, the Carters hosted the first international Carter Project in Tijuana, Mexico. Since then, they built homes with Habitat in Canada, South Korea, Hungary, South Africa, India, China, and Haiti, among other countries.
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