Jimmy Carter Work Project

I am finally getting around to updating the blog after the JCWP. We had a great but exhausting week. It began with President Carter's arrival on Sunday afternoon. I met him at the worksite (after being investigated and "pinned" by the Secret Service) and gave he and Rosalynn a tour of the project. We discussed the scope of work for the upcoming week, and various aspects of the project and construction in LA in general. He is a very personable man and easy to be with. I can see why he has such success brokering peace in troubled regions.

After his party left to go to our opening ceremonies, I too joined the festivities.

Throughout the week, I had many opportunities to interact with Carter as well as the many celebrities coming through. We worked with Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, Paige Hemmis from "Extreme Home Makeover", Miss World, Blair Underwood (LA Law, New Adventures of Old Christine, etc.), June Lockhart stopped by, a number of producers/writers, and many more. On Friday, I spent about an hour and a half walking Carter around the worksite introducing him to each house leader and showing him the progress. It was cool. We did not take many pictures because we need to respect our visiting celebrities so they will want to come back and work again. Here are a few:

Jimmy and Rosalynn on the worksite with his assistant Nancy and S.S. agentA shot across the worksite

Miss India/World. Diana befriended Laurie and I, interviewed us on camera, and hung out with us a couple of times.

Me on the roof while solar panels are being installed, holding a banner of one of our partner organizations.

The project ended on Friday afternoon, and we had a party at a nearby Mexican restaurant. We invited everyone in sight, and had Miss World (Diana), Blair Underwood (to the absolute disbelief of nearby diners), and Darren from the Secret Service join our very large group. It was a blast. Darren had to take my SS pin back, but gave me an official SS money clip in exchange.

At one point mid-week, I was asked to show a gentleman around the houses under construction and answer his questions. He was very impressed, and said he was coming to our closing ceremonies on Thursday evening to give us $1,000,000.00 toward our work in LA. Turns out he owns a production company in Hollywood that did "Saving Private Ryan" and "3:10 to Yuma", among others, and did give us the one million dollars! You just never know out here.

Enough for now. . .more to come soon. Mark