By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Ameriwood's Betty Servis always admired Jimmy Carter.
He's why she volunteered to spend vacation time in a hot, heavy hard hat building a Habitat for Humanity home June 19-24 in Benton Harbor.
Servis, of Center Street, commuted back and forth while constructing home No. 7 of 20 at 688 E. High St. ("but they're naming it Jimmy Carter Drive, is what they said at the closing ceremonies") for Ron and Angela Collins and their two sons, 5 and 1.
Masco Corp., one of the world's largest manufacturers of brand-name consumer products for the home and family, sponsored the house she helped build.
She said the family had an apartment, but moved in with her mother in Benton Harbor to make sure they could save toward their down payment.
The closest she came to seeing someone else from Dowagiac was when Gary McLaughlin showed up Thursday to help install the furnace.
Servis, who previously worked at Jessup Door Co., moved here when she married her husband, James, more than 30 years ago.
He's retired, but works part-time at Harding's in Cassopolis.
Servis said she's "leery about going out of the country" for the next JCWP
in India, but "might just do the one in the United States in two years" at an unknown location.
Servis succeeded at her goal of seeing the former White House resident, who worked "kitty corner across the street" from her, "but you couldn't go up and take pictures of him" with the Secret Service, state police and deputy sheriffs maintaining a protective perimeter.
However, when she left her camera in her vehicle and was cleaning out a paint brush, she was startled to look up and see who spoke to her and it was Carter passing by.
Plus, Carter posed for photographs with the blitz builders at each site so they will have a keepsake and greeted each briefly in a receiving line. She's looking forward to being able to download her picture July 5.
She said Carter signed the Bibles presented to each family.
Servis does quality auditing for Ameriwood, where she has been employed for 10 years.
The Carters led volunteers from around the world in Berrien County and in Detroit (30 homes) in erecting affordable houses in partnership with people in need.
More than 50 Habitat affiliates throughout Michigan and parts of Canada, such as Cass County and the Family Motorcoach Association, put up a total of 225 houses in local communities.
President Carter's longstanding relationship with Habitat can be traced to 1984, when he gave a day of his carpentry skills and manual labor in Americus, Ga., home to Habitat's international headquarters.
The Jimmy Carter Work Project has become Habitat's largest annual event.
Approximately 500,000 Michigan households earn less than 50 percent of their county's median income, making decent, affordable housing difficult to find.
Almost 75 percent of these households, or nearly 375,000 families, spend more than half their incomes for housing, leaving little money for food, clothing, health care, transportation and other necessities.