[4] By 2019, the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project had helped 4,390 families move into safe, affordable shelter in 14 countries.
This marked the first year the project was held in tandem with a worldwide Habitat House-Raising Week, in which an additional 300 homes were begun.
During a live TV interview, President Carter asked for help from local roofers, who started showing up in droves the following morning.
They roofed all the houses in one day, and the Milwaukee affiliate received a huge boost in donations and attention that carried it forward.
[9] Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, California: By venturing across the border, the Carter Work Project became international for the first time.
"I really enjoyed how all the volunteers, both white and black, came together and helped build for the project," said homeowner Virginia Marshal, who was still living in her Habitat home more than 20 years later.
Canadians from more than 50 communities poured into Winnipeg and Waterloo to build 28 new homes in the first completely international Carter Work Project.
Volunteers slept in tents pitched on the local high school's football field, while the Carters stayed nearby in a traditional teepee provided by the Sioux Indians.
Emmanuel Joseph Red Bear II said it was "a dream come true" to build his own home alongside the Carters.
More than 1,500 volunteers from 39 states and five countries worked at the project, which was accompanied by an accelerated build at five other southern California affiliates.
The picturesque small town of Vác (pronounced "Vaatz"), in a bend of the Danube River a little north of Budapest, was the "most beautiful" project site, he would later say.
Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee: The Appalachian project "Hammering in the Hills" had beautiful backdrops, but the poverty there ran deep.
[15] Philippines: The theme in Tagalog was "Magbayanihan Tayo — "Let us build together" — for the largest and most complicated Carter Work Project ever, with 293 houses at six sites and 14,000 volunteers.
Filipino media covered the project relentlessly; more than 150 journalists jockeyed behind a fence to get shots of the Carters as they built simple homes made of concrete blocks with galvanized metal roofs and louvered glass windows.
At the opening ceremony, President Carter said he, too, had grown up in a segregated society, and felt a connection to South Africa.
When volunteers showed up Monday morning at the Benton Harbor build site, they found a Labrador mix puppy with no owner.
"[23] Los Angeles and San Pedro, California: Although known for new home construction, the Carter Work Project, like Habitat, has embraced new ways of helping people and of mobilizing against poverty housing.
In 2007, volunteers repaired 35 Los Angeles homes as part of Habitat's A Brush With Kindness program, in addition to building 30 townhomes and condos.
"[25] Mekong River Region(China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam): The Mekong River begins in China and flows south through Laos, Thailand and Cambodia before finding the sea in Vietnam; in 2009 the Carter Work Project built 166 homes throughout all five countries simultaneously.
[26] Washington, D.C.; Baltimore, Maryland; Twin Cities, Minnesota; and Birmingham, Alabama: In honor of President Carter's 86th birthday, volunteers built and rehabbed 86 homes in four locations in 2010.
The President also joined the Blind Boys of Alabama onstage at the opening ceremony on World Habitat Day to sing "If I Had a Hammer.
[28] Families had been living in flimsy shelters in a sugar cane field in stifling heat, and were excited as their simple, sturdy new homes went up.