Jimmy Carter helped restore Habitat for Humanity homes in Philly more than 30 years ago. Now, the organization is honoring his legacy.

In 1988, former President Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter spent a couple of days in North Philadelphia. And, like the other volunteers gathered on the 1900 block of West Wilt Street, they were there to work, rolling up their sleeves and grabbing tools to help renovate five vacant houses that would eventually go to first-time homebuyers.

“The Carters were very much just a part of the volunteers that show up two and a half days with us,” said John McClintick, who volunteered alongside the Carters in Philadelphia before the former president and first lady moved on to another project in North Carolina.

Nearly four decades later, those five North Philadelphia houses — which are still owned and occupied by Habitat for Humanity families — are just a small part of the vast legacy of humanitarianism from Carter, who died at 100 on Dec. 29, and Rosalynn Carter, who died in November 2023 and will be the namesake for four under-construction Habitat homes in Mantua.

As Carter’s state funeral was underway Thursday in Washington, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and Councilmember Jamie Gauthier joined leaders from Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia in front of City Hall to honor the Carters' more than three decades of volunteer service with the organization, including the building and restoration of thousands of homes around the world through their Carter Work Project.

Braving the cold, the elected officials and organization leaders stood in a corner of Dilworth Park in front of a wooden “door of opportunity” — symbolic of the many front doors the Carters gave to homeowners — as they commended the former president for his willingness to get his hands dirty and provide a public service to people in need.

“People have asked is there a plaque on Wilt Street? And I was like, ‘No, the Carters aren’t plaques-on-buildings people. They roll up their sleeves, pick up the hammer, and do their work,’” said Corinne O’Connell, the CEO of Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia.

The door, Habitat leaders said, will eventually be a part of a future Habitat for Humanity home.

Parker, who is expected to share the details of her housing plan this year, said the Carters’ work is the “example.”

“This is the blueprint on today as the 100th mayor of the city of Philadelphia, as the first woman mayor of the city of Philadelphia, I say to President Carter and the entire Carter family, thank you for sharing him with us,” Parker said.

The recognition came as Habitat for Humanity organizations across the world paid tribute to the 39th president, according to the organization. Carter’s state funeral was held Thursday at Washington National Cathedral after the former president lay in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.

Carter is the longest-lived American president, whose advocacy work for affordable housing and other humanitarian issues often outshined his single term in the White House, which was marked by tumultuous events at home and abroad.

Gauthier, whose district encompasses the under-construction Habitat homes in Mantua that will be named “Rosalynn’s Way,” said Carter, after losing his bid for reelection in 1980, could have done what “many politicians would have done — licked his wounds and said, ‘See you never.’”

“Instead, President Carter doubled down on his priorities, diving headfirst into causes near and dear to his heart well into old age,” Gauthier said.

For more than 35 years after their time in the White House, the Carters joined more than 104,000 volunteers in 14 countries to build, renovate, or repair 4,390 homes, and raising the organization’s national profile, according to Habitat for Humanity.

“President Carter has shown us what it means to continue to give long after public office has been left behind,” said Clissita Daniels, a Habitat homeowner.

Daniels moved to Philadelphia 16 years ago, and at the time was experiencing homelessness while taking care of four children. She applied twice for Habitat for Humanity, building up her “sweat equity hours” so she could create a home for her family.

“I was determined to have a home for my family, and President Carter knew firsthand about the sweat equity,” Daniels said. “He, too, worked hands-on to build houses, but not for himself, for people like me.”

It was a full-circle moment for McClintick, who got to see some of that “sweat equity” — typically new homeowners investing in housing for themselves or another family — in person.

When McClintick signed the “door of opportunity,” he added his initials and those of his children and his wife, whom he met while participating in Habitat for Humanity. Around their initials, he drew a heart.

“Jimmy Carter, you know, he’s a Georgia farm boy,” McClintick said. “And knows one end of a hammer from another.”