Jimmy Carter Is Just Days Away From Turning 100—Help Wish Him A Happy Birthday!

President Jimmy Carter

continues to defy the odds. Now in his 18th month of hospice care, the Georgia native is just days away from turning 100 years old on Tuesday, October 1st.

It’s an incredible milestone, and the Carter Center is celebrating by inviting the public to upload a photo and a message to a virtual birthday card for the former president on its

website

.

Submissions will be shared with the Carter family and compiled into a digital mosaic illustrating the magnitude of President Carter’s legacy and his impact on people all over the world.

The idea of a mosaic comes from a quote from a speech Jimmy gave in Pittsburgh on October 27, 1976: « We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams. »

Jimmy is the oldest living president in U.S. history. He and his wife,

Rosalynn Carter

, were married for 77 years before

her death in November 2023

.

Jason Carter, the oldest of the couple’s 22 grandchildren, told


Southern Living

last week

, that his grandfather is “doing okay… he’s really physically diminished. He really can’t do much on his own but he’s emotionally engaged. He is mentally engaged.”

In June, Jason said

, the former president is simply “experiencing the world as best he can as he continues through this process” without his wife by his side.

“After 77 years of marriage… I just think none of us really understand what it’s like for him right now,” Jason said. “We have to embrace that fact, that there’s things about the spirit that you just can’t understand.”

He said that a lengthy hospice stay was the last thing the Carter family expected for the patriarch. But “God had other plans,” Jason mused.

To submit your own birthday message to the 39th president, visit cartercenter.org.