Planning For Jimmy Carter’s 100th Birthday Has Begun

Jimmy Carter might just live to see his 100th birthday in three months.

As the former president’s grandson, Jason Carter, told Southern Living last month, a lengthy hospice stay was the last thing the Carter family expected for the patriarch. In fact, Jason said  that when Jimmy entered hospice care in February 2023, they thought that it would be a matter of days. But, he mused: “God had other plans.” 

Now in his 16th month of hospice care, it’s looking like Jimmy might make it to his 100th birthday on October 1. 

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, some plans are already in place to mark the occasion… should it come to pass. 

Jill Stuckey, a family friend and superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park in Plains, Georgia, told the newspaper that she visits the 39th president almost every day. She thinks he will live to see his centennial. 

“I think he is going to make it to 100,” Stuckey said. “I don’t know that he is saying that, ‘I’m going to live to 100.’ But I do know there is will to live in all of us, and I think he has that same will.”

AJC compiled some of the events currently in the works for Carter’s 100th birthday, including a 100-mile community bicycle ride in Sumter County and a free film festival organized by the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta. The film festival will take place on September 28 and feature some of Jimmy’s favorite movies while in office.

“We have always planned to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth, and it just makes it even more special that he is still with us,” Tony Clark, a spokesperson for the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, told the newspaper.

Paige Alexander, CEO of The Carter Center, hinted that the nonprofit has something up their sleeves involving music.

“Music was an important part of his life,” she told AJC. “It will have something to do with that.” 

This is a developing story.