A few years back, former President Jimmy Carter autographed a pair of his old running shoes.
Ka-ching. They went for $11,500 at an annual fundraising auction for the Carter Center, helping the Atlanta-based nonprofit carry on its do-good operations around the globe. Among the other items bid on that year: an oil painting by Jimmy Carter that fetched $600,000.
In other years, the auctions included bottles of the former first couple’s homemade wine, a four-poster bed and wood duck decoys crafted by the ex-commander in chief, a baseball signed by Carter and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and a 1973 photo of Rosalynn Carter with Elvis Presley.
This weekend marks the 32nd year that the Carter Center, founded by the former first couple, has held auctions as part of its annual retreat for donors.
Rosalynn Carter passed away last year and the former president, after more than a year in hospice, is approaching his 100th birthday. But the global center that was so much a part of the couple’s legacy has yet to run out of things to offer: campaign memorabilia, artwork and gifts given post-White House to the Carters.
Carter Center officials often can’t fathom what items might draw the highest bids. But anything that belonged to the famously frugal Carters could become a fundraising gem.
Consider one package being auctioned at this year’s event in San Diego: a weathered metal bucket with partially squeezed tubes of old paints and a pitcher of art brushes used by the former president in his oil-painting days, along with a signed print of one of his paintings. Estimated value by the center: $2,000.
Officials say they don’t have space to display all the items in the center’s collection, which has ballooned over the more than 40 years since the couple left Washington, traveling the world on peace and health missions and Habitat for Humanity builds. In far-flung capitals and tiny towns, the Carters were given gifts by those they visited, from government officials to local artisans.
“Every trip they went on, someone gave them something,” said Paige Alexander, the Carter Center’s chief executive.
Every year the center selects some from that stockpile to auction off along with other items offered up by donors and supporters. “We have a lot of memorabilia,” Alexander said.
Retreat events have raised about $2 million a year in recent times and $46 million cumulatively over more than three decades. A 2013 oil painting of a bald eagle by Jimmy Carter netted $225,000 at last year’s auction in Atlanta.
Several guitars, signed by stars such as Stevie Nicks, Sting and Rod Stewart, are included among this year’s offerings.
Plenty of other items are on the block, either at a scheduled live auction slated to be held Saturday evening or at a silent auction. Among the offerings:
— Items signed by the former president, from a golf ball, a baseball, silk ties, various books he authored, framed photos and posters from his presidential campaigns.
— Two cookbooks with Carter family recipes and entertaining menus and a Carter Center apron signed, you guessed it, by the former president.
— A professor’s history lesson plan on Jimmy Carter and Andrew Jackson, signed by Carter, along with a signed photo of him delivering a Nobel Peace Prize lecture, as well as a document from the 1800s signed by Jackson.
— Fly fishing memorabilia tied to the former president.
— Shaker boxes designed by Rosalynn Carter.
— Artwork from paintings to wood bowls, a rocking chair, jewelry and a silk screen print by author Ray Bradbury.
— Gifts given to the Carters from dignitaries in other countries, among them Indonesia, Nepal, Peru, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Qatar.
— Various vacation packages and gift certificates for flights on Delta Air Lines.
In the past, donors could bid for the chance to join Carter on fly fishing trips or quail hunting outings. But not any more.
The Carters last attended the annual retreat in person in 2019. The former president, who turned 99 last October, is mostly homebound these days in Plains, the rural Georgia town where he and Rosalynn grew up. He last appeared in public at Rosalynn’s funeral last November.
“He is 99 years old and he is acting age appropriate,” said Alexander.
Members of the Carter family will be among the 150 expected attendees. Grandson Jason Carter chairs the center’s board of trustees.
The feel of the event “is a mixture of a family reunion and master class,” including updates on the nonprofit’s activities, Alexander said. It isn’t a black-tie gala. Instead of crystal wine glasses, think red Solo cups, she said.
Finding a second life for gifts or used items seems especially Carter-like. The couple often seemed allergic to fancy. Or waste.
They continued to live in the same modest ranch home they built in Plains in 1961. They never renovated the home’s 60-plus-year-old kitchen, said family friend Jill Stuckey, who is superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park. The house’s bathrooms are still adorned in their original bluish/greenish tiles.
The former first couple often dined on leftovers and washed and reused plastic storage baggies rather than tossing them, she said. Carter turned off the lights when he left a room. When Stuckey planned to throw away an old wooden chair she had with a busted armrest, the former president carted it away. He fixed it and returned it a day later.
While the events will be held in California this year, people in Georgia and elsewhere can view the auction items and bid on them online. Bids have to be in by Saturday 7 p.m. Eastern Time.
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