Former President Plans to Lend Hand with Homebuilding Project

Photo via Wiki Commons

By City News Service

When volunteers from an Inland Empire nonprofit that builds homes for the indigent head off to Nepal in October, they will have a former U.S. president leading the way.

President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn will be personally involved in efforts to erect 100 homes for victims of devastating earthquakes that struck Nepal earlier this year.

Temecula-based Habitat for Humanity of the Inland Valley and the Jimmy Carter Work Project are slated to construct the prefab houses during a charity mission in the first week of November.

“I am thrilled we are sending a work team to Nepal for the 2015 Jimmy Carter Work Project,” said Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Tammy Marine. “Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been tireless leaders and faithful servants in the fight to abolish poverty housing.”

The work will be taking place in Pokhara, Nepal, and is part of a wider plan to build permanent housing for 100,000 displaced Nepali families by the start of next year, according to Marine.

“Connecting to our brothers around the world reiterates one basic fact: Despite our cultural, socioeconomic and geographic differences, we are still one people,” she said. “In this privilege of serving, we are uniquely transformed. While our intent is to improve the lives of others, my experience says our own volunteers will gain a sense of understanding and compassion for the challenges a large majority of the world’s residents face every single day.”

Nepal was struck by a magnitude-7.8 quake on April 25 and a magnitude- 7.3 shaker on May 12. About 9,000 people were killed and more than 22,000 injured, according to the Nepalese government. Roughly 600,000 homes were flattened, leaving several million people homeless. Many have resorted to living in tent cities.

Habitat for Humanity of the Inland Valley provides homes for those in need throughout southwest Riverside County, including Temecula, Murrieta, Menifee and Lake Elsinore.

The Carter Work Project has built or renovated nearly 4,000 properties in 14 countries over the last three decades, according to Habitat for Humanity.

Donations for the November homebuilding project can be made at www.habitativ.org/carterworkproject .