Habitat World Online

"This is one of the things that I look forward to every year," said former first lady and longtime Habitat volunteer Rosalynn Carter. "It's really an emotional experience for me."

The Commitment of the Carters
A new name celebrated 25 years of building with Habitat for Humanity’s most famous volunteers, as thousands fanned out to further hurricane-recovery efforts along the Gulf Coast

By Fran Burst-Terranella and Shala Carlson

When Rosalynn Carter stepped to the microphone to address the volunteers and homeowners gathered for the Biloxi-based closing ceremonies of the 25th Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project, she received one of the warmest ovations of the evening. It was the culmination of a week — a lifetime, really — of building with Habitat for Humanity.

The annual event formerly known as the Jimmy Carter Work Project was renamed in 2008 to recognize Mrs. Carter’s many years of dedicated service to Habitat alongside her husband, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. This year’s event drew more than 1,700 volunteers and ultimately will result in more than 250 Habitat houses built or rehabilitated.

“I remember, that first trip, I didn’t particularly want to go,” Mrs. Carter said before the weeklong build began. “I told Jimmy that I have never done anything but maybe a nail on the wall to hang a picture. So that I would go, but that I was not going to hammer anything.

“On the first day, we were up on the second floor. And here comes a young man that says, ‘President Carter says to nail this down.’ So the very first day, I was hammering, and now I am a fairly accomplished carpenter.”

The Carters build together in New Orleans, one of 18 Habitat affiliate locations that participated in the 25th Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project.

Mrs. Carter — introduced by her husband during this year’s project as “my favorite of all the Habitat volunteers I’ve ever known” — put those carpentry skills to good use on the Gulf Coast.

She also helped call attention to the work that remains to be done in the battered region. “I hope,” she said, “that we have put the consciousness of the great need that is still here on the minds of the American people again.”

Sitting in the freshly painted room of a nearly completed Habitat house in Biloxi on the last morning of the 2008 build, the Carters reflected on what Habitat means to them.

“My mother devoted her life to helping people who were poor and deprived,” said President Carter. “She reached out to them, and she would pay no attention to any elements of racial discrimination or discrimination against people because they were poor or ill or in need.

“And I don’t think there’s any doubt that my mother’s kind of inspiration is the same kind that we get from Habitat. Habitat gives us an opportunity which is very difficult to find: to reach out and work side by side with those who never have had a decent home — but work with them on a completely equal basis. It’s not a big-shot, little-shot relationship. It’s a sense of equality, and that’s what my mother stood for in her life.”

“Jimmy’s mother was an inspiration to me, too,” Mrs. Carter added. “I spent a lot of time at their house when I was growing up, and I got to know the whole family. Jimmy’s mother came to help take care of my daddy when he was sick. And when he died, the whole community just helped us. I grew up with that, seeing people help people.”