Candidate volunteering in community

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Carter Serving Community

By Jim McNally | Statesville R&L

Roy Carter wants a seat in the US House of Representatives.


And one of the ways he intends on securing that seat is by helping others
with their houses.


Carter is a recently-retired high school teacher and football coach. But, he
says, he knows his way around a construction site and feels at home donning a
tool belt or a nail apron.


The 5th District Democrat was in Statesville Tuesday with members of his
campaign team at the Rita Avenue home of Helen Houpe making some repairs on the
house.


The group volunteered as part of a program offered by Habitat for Humanity of
Iredell County called Brush With Kindness, which helps owners of older homes
with relatively minor fixer-upper needs.
"We're committed to doing a service
project in every county in the district," said Carter spokesman Ben Salt.


Most of the those projects will involve Habitat, Carter said. He said he has
a special fondness for the organization and has participated in a number of
builds, including two at which former President Jimmy Carter was also a
volunteer.


Roy Carter, who is challenging Rep. Virginia Foxx in the November election,
told the story of an event at which President Carter's presence had attracted a
lot of media coverage.


"But when all the TV cameras and news people left, the president came up to
me and said, 'The media's all gone, but we're not done here. Can you help me
finish the work here?' " Carter recalled. "Which, of course, I was honored to
do."


Carter also said he has built, almost entirely by himself, four houses that
he lived in.
Billy Little, Habitat's construction supervisor, said Houpe's
house was the sixth one the organization has tackled since the program began
earlier this year.


Houpe's daughter, Candy Brown, described some things Little and the Carter
crew fixed Tuesday.
"We couldn't take baths in the bathroom," she said. "The
pipes leaked and the fixtures didn't work and they replaced all that."


Brown said the group also fixed a hole in the back room wall.


"You could see the outside from the inside," Brown said. "These guys were
life-savers."


Houpe agreed. She said she was not familiar with Carter's bid to unseat, but
she'll remember him now.
"He was a godsend," she said. "That's all I need to
know about him."


Carter said it was that kind of response that inspired him to make service
work part of his campaign.
"If nothing else comes out of this, I get the joy
of helping out and the blessing that comes with it," he said. "Also I meet a lot
of people when I'm out campaigning, but this gives me a chance to actually get
to know people."


www.roycarterforcongress.com
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This is the fifth habitat build Roy has taken part in, and will do more than 12 before the election.