Todd Lunneborg played for Jimmy Carter on a guitar made from a tree President Carter planted 15 years earlier.
Jimmy Carter once said,
“If you have a voice and an instrument, you are welcome in my home”.
In a world upended by the pandemic, with half of the world’s population in lockdown, the 39th President of the United States kept his word. He invited guitar builder Todd Lunneborg into his home.
Wearing a mask and sitting 30-feet away in the former President’s garden, Todd played an extraordinary new guitar made by Army veteran and guitar builder Jason Kostal.
The reason?
Fifteen years earlier, the President planted 15 acres of Paulownia trees, a tree that reaches full maturity in 10-12 years and, when harvested, regrows from the stump up to seven times. Unsure what to do with his timber – the President contacted the largest grower of Paulownia trees in North and Latin America, World Tree.
World Tree coordinated the building of a series of guitars and Ukuleles from the President’s timber:
The Jimmy Carter Legacy Collection.
