The Carter Center auctions, donations raise $2.8M for charity

July 2 (UPI) -- Donations and auction sales during the 2024 Carter Center Weekend event raised more than $2.8 million to support global peace and health initiatives to ease human suffering.

"We are incredibly grateful for the continued generosity and commitment of our loyal supporters," The Carter Center chief executive officer Paige Alexander said in a news release Tuesday.

"These contributions will advance The Carter Center's ongoing work to promote peace and health around the world," Alexander added.

The center is named in honor of former President Jimmy Carter , who founded the center in Atlanta in 1982 in partnership with Emory University and his wife, Rosalynn.

A live auction for Carter's artist tools and a signed print of a painting of The Carter Center that he completed in 2005 fetched the highest bid amount of $1 million.

A silent auction for an Epiphone guitar signed by the late singer and musician Dan Fogelberg , plus a note he wrote apologizing for not selling out a concert and a matted photo of him performing at Atlanta's Chastain Park in 1990, sold for $25,000.

Other notable auction items and their winning bids include:

• $250,000 for a guitar autographed by singer Stevie Nicks
• $210,000 for Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. memorabilia
• $100,000 for an autographed portrait of Rosalynn Carter
• $100,000 for a signed photo of President Carter's first pitch at an MLB game
• $50,000 for President Carter's fly-fishing memorabilia
• $25,000 for Muhammad Ali memorabilia
• $18,000 for a handcrafted umbrella cane/vase made by Russ Filbeck
• $16,000 for an autographed photo of presidents Carter, Bush, Clinton and Ford

The Carter Center's annual fundraiser was held Wednesday through Sunday in San Diego.

Carter, 99, has been in hospice care for nearly two years and has survived metastatic cancer and liver cancer.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his "decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

Rosalynn Carter died of natural causes on Nov. 19 at age 96.