ATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter is preparing to celebrate his 100th anniversary on Tuesday, it will mark the first time an American president has lived a full century and the latest milestone in a life that took the son of a Depression-era farmer to the White House and around the world as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and advocate for democracy.

Lived at home for the last 19 months hospice care in Plains, the Georgia Democrat and 39th chairman has continued to defy expectations, just as he did through a remarkable rise from his family peanut farming and warehousing business to the world stage. He served one presidential term from 1977 to 1981 and then spent more than four decades directing The Carter Center, which he and his wife Rosalynn co-founded in 1982 to “build peace, fight disease and build hope.”

“Not everyone gets 100 years on this earth, and when someone does, and when they use that time to do so much good for so many people, it’s worth celebrating,” said Jason Carter, the grandson of the former president and chairman of the Carter Center. board, said in an interview.

“These last few months, 19 months, now that he’s been in hospice, it’s been an opportunity for our family to reflect,” he continued, “and then for the rest of the country and the world to really reflect on him think. That was a really satisfying time.”

The former president was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, where he lived for more than 80 of his 100 years. He is expected to celebrate his birthday in the same one-story home he and Rosalynn built in the early 1960s — before his first election to the Georgia Senate. The former first lady, who was also born in Plains, died last November at 96.

The Carter Center hosted one on September 17 musical gala in Atlanta to celebrate the former president with a range of genres and artists, including some who campaigned with him in 1976. The event raised more than $1.2 million for the center’s programs and will air Tuesday evening on Georgia Public Broadcasting.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, Habitat for Humanity volunteers honored Carter with a five-day effort to build 30 homes. The Carters became top ambassadors of the international organization after leaving the White House, organizing annual construction projects until their 90th birthday. Carter survived a cancer diagnosis at age 90, then several falls and a hip replacement in the mid-90s before announcing at age 98 that he would enter hospice care.

Townspeople in Plains planned another concert Tuesday night.

The last time Jimmy Carter was seen in public was almost a year ago, when he used a reclining wheelchair to be with his wife two funeral services. Visibly weakened and silent, he was joined in the front row of the Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church in Atlanta by the couple’s four children, each living former first lady, President Joe Biden and his wife Jill and former President Bill Clinton. A day later, Carter joined his extended family and parishioners at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, where the former president taught Sunday school for decades.

Jason Carter said the 100th anniversary celebration was not something the family expected after his grandmother’s death. The former president’s hospital bed was set up in the same room so he could see his woman of 77 years and talk to her in her last days and hours.

“Honestly, we didn’t think he was going to go on much longer,” Jason Cater said. “But it’s a journey of faith for him, and he’s really given himself over to what he believes is God’s plan. He knows he’s not in charge. But especially in the last few months, he’s become much more involved in world events, much more involved in politics, much more, just emotionally involved with all of us.”

Jason Carter said the centenarian president, born just four years after women won the constitutional right to vote and four decades before black women gained the right to vote, is eager to cast his 2024 presidential vote — for vice president Kamala Harristhe Democrat who wants to become the first woman, the second black person and the first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office.

“He, like many of us, was incredibly pleased with his friend Joe Biden’s courageous choice to pass the torch,” the younger Carter said. “You know, my grandfather and The Carter Center have covered over a hundred elections in forty other countries, right? So he knows how rare it is for someone who is a sitting president to give up power in any context.”

Jason Carter continued, “When we asked him about his 100th birthday, he said he was excited to vote for Kamala Harris.”

Early voting in Georgia begins on October 15, two weeks after James Earl Carter Jr.’s 101st year.