PLAINS, Ga. (WRBL) — If you want to see the good work that President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, have done, all you need to do is look across from their Plains home. On Waymon Street, not far from the Carter compound, is the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Boys and Girls Club. This club was built in 1999. And President and Rosalynn Carter had a path from their home to this club when it was under construction. They also used it when they would volunteer at the club. And like many Habitat for Humanity houses they have helped build, the Carters literally put hammer to nail here. It was renovated in 2019 and rededicated in 2020 just before the pandemic hit. It serves about 20 boys and girls here in Plains. It is operated by the Boys and Girls Club of Albany – one of nine facilities that the organization runs. There are only two Boys and Girls Clubs in the nation that bare the name of a former president. The Herbert Hoover Club in St. Louis and the Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter Unit here. “Not only did they help build the club, physically build it, but they were very engaged as members of the Board of Managers here, as well as our corporate board of directors — they serve as honorary chairs,” said Marvin Laster/the former president of the Boys and Girls Club of Albany. “ The Carters helped the Plains Boys and Girls Club establish a $2.5 million endowment that ensure the long-term success of the club. Laster only had one disagreement with President Carter. “Our disagreement was one around the naming of this club,” Laster said. “We were sitting in a board meeting at this very facility and he made a motion that we change the name to the Boys and Girls Club of Plains. Because all of his work has not been about him or her. It has been about uplifting people. And I said, ‘President Carter, absolutely not. We will not entertain that motion.’ And I explained to him why it was so important we kept the name the way it was. And he said OK, just as he did as a president negotiating peace deals around the world. We came to a mutual understanding while in meetings we would not refer to it as the Carter unit, but rather the Boys and Girls Club of Plains."

PLAINS, Ga. — Jimmy Carter has always come home to Plains. After leaving the Navy in 1953, he returned to Plains, the tiny Georgia town where he was raised, and where he eventually started the political career that would lead him to the presidency. Years later, he found in Plains a haven where he could reinvent himself after a stinging defeat that ousted him from the White House. And more recently, it was a place to heal, as he weathered severe health setbacks. Now, Mr. Carter, 98, has come back to Plains once again, drawn by the comforts of home and the embrace of a community that he has cherished and relied upon through every chapter of his life, including what now appears to be his last.

PLAINS, Ga. (WALB) - People are traveling into Plains from near and far with one person on their minds — former president Jimmy Carter. They come with prayers and reflections on his contributions to society, one being his work with the youth through the Boys and Girls Club. That impact has touched many people so much so that the club in Plains was named after him and his wife, Rosalynn Carter. From supporting the national office of the Boys and Girls Club in Atlanta to building their own club with their own hands in their hometown of Plains in 1999, the Carters have been helping the youth for over 30 years in more ways than one. “There’s no way that you can put a dollar amount on his contributions to not only this club, this community but the world,” said Marvin Laster, the former CEO of the Boys and Girls Club in Albany. In 2019, The Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Unit was renovated and the Carters became honorary co-chairs of the board of directors for the Boys and Girls Club of Albany. The nonprofit has 10 units including the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Unit and serves over 1,000 children in Dougherty, Sumter and Macon counties. It’s because of various funds the Carters donated to the Plains Boys and Girls Club that kids who come through the club don’t have to worry about a membership fee. “His legacy is one that will live in perpetuity and that’s what he wanted, especially with this club. It wasn’t about this building having his name on it. What it was about was kids will always have a place to go, grow and thrive in his hometown and they won’t have to pay a single penny,” Laster said. Tim Wofford, the current CEO of the Boys and Girls, said the Carters’ support through the Boys and Girls Club of Albany will last support will last for many generations to come.  “That is going to be our ultimate goal is to make sure we don’t let this community down, we don’t let him down or the first lady so the work has just begun,” Wofford said.