NASHVILLE, Tenn. — With his eye still bruised, former President Jimmy Carter didn’t let a recent fall stop him from making the trip to Nashville for this week’s Habitat for Humanity event.
The opening of the Carter Work Project was celebrated on Sunday night at the Ryman Auditorium. The project will help dozens of Nashville residents with affordable housing.
President Carter’s unrelenting dedication to helping others showed at the opening ceremony.
The former President, who is 95, was getting ready for church at his Plains, Georgia, home Sunday morning when he fell, but that didn’t stop him from making the trip.
“I fell and hit my forehead on a sharp edge and had to go to the hospital and they took 14 stitches in my forehead,” Carter said at the opening ceremony. “My eye is black and you’ve noticed, but I had a Number 1 priority and that was to come to Nashville to build houses.”
From Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, hundreds of people attended the start of the 36th Jimmy and Rossalyn Carter Work Project, a push to bring affordable housing to Nashvillians.
“They put in a hundred hours of classroom work. They put in 100 hours of building on their homes and other homes. They earned this opportunity,” said Danny Herron, President of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Nashville. “It is definitely a hand-up and not a handout.”
The former president along with country music stars and hundreds of volunteers will pick up saws and hammers this week building 21 new affordable homes in the Park Preserve neighborhood.
One of those homeowners said this project changed her life.
“I have a place to pass onto my children, a savings account, so I’m ready for life’s emergencies, and the ability to bless others whenever God lays it on my heart,” said Tara Morgan.
With the population of Nashville constantly rising and this week’s project reminds working class families they’re not forgotten.