Shaking hands with President Jimmy Carter

Aquaculture specialist Joe Sullivan returned from his Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer assignment in Senegal last week. On the plane trip back, Dr. Sullivan met President Jimmy Carter and told him about his F2F assignment, as he describes below:

“I met President Jimmy Carter on the plane on my JFK to Atlanta leg coming home from a volunteer Farmer-to-Farmer assignment in Senegal this past Sunday. He noticed my Winrock hat and asked if I worked for the organization. I said ‘Yes,’ and explained that I was just getting back from a volunteer assignment in Senegal. He apparently is familiar with Winrock and likes what the organization does. He was walking through the entire economy cabin shaking hands with everyone, despite his own seat being in first class. He is a really classy, though low-key and warm guy.

We all like to gauge our success on these projects by how they seem to impact our hosts and the people around them, and we should, but once in a while we meet people who also want to change things, whose values are like ours for making a difference, and who do something as simple as catch sight of our Winrock hat, and what we do comes to their minds as well.

So, be sure to ‘Wear your hat!’