Ex-president Jimmy Carter, who passed away at 100, deserves to be remembered as an extraordinary volunteer. He was active in the Habitat for Humanity foundation for 36 years, from 1984 when he was already ex-president, until 2020. His volunteer work for that foundation included constructing houses along with his wife, Rosalynn. Together they traveled to 14 countries to help construct more than 4,000 houses alongside 104,000 other volunteers. Largely due to his and Rosalynn’s volunteering, Habitat for Humanity today is the world’s largest foundation doing construction work. On a personal note, while working with the Boston-based United Planet foundation as its Chile coordinator in Santiago, I was responsible for coordinating construction work projects for American volunteers along with their Chilean counterparts such as Techo para Chile. Because of the well-known example of Jimmy Carter, it was always easy to find enthusiastic American volunteers of all ages ready to make the long trip down to Chile.
Paul Fischer
Santiago, Chile
Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.
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