Country music superstars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood were back in Edmonton Monday after playing nine sold-out shows at Rogers Place in February.

This time around, the couple was here to do work of a different kind.

Brooks and Yearwood sported hard hats and steel-toed boots at a construction site in the Meadows neighbourhood. They were among the nearly 1,000 volunteers assisting with the 34th annual Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project through Habitat for Humanity.

Brooks and Yearwood have been helping former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn build homes around the world for years.

The Carters' project is building 150 homes across Canada this year for Canada's 150th birthday. Nearly 70 of those homes are going up in the Edmonton area and are expected to be completed by 2018.

Brooks said it doesn't matter where the builds take place, it's a "spot of love."

"It all kind of looks the same," Brooks said. "Different coloured shirts, hard hats, the sound of hammers and all they're doing is building for people they don't know. How beautiful is that?"

This 150-home project is the Carters' second-largest. The largest was in the Philippines, where about 14,000 volunteers built close to 300 homes.

"This has been, I think, the best prepared work project we've been in yet. It's obvious how much work has been done before we got here," Carter said.

At 92 and 89 years old, respectively, the former president and his wife don't shy away from hard work.

"We've never been to a project and not come home and said, 'That was the most wonderful experience we've ever had," he said.

Abdoulaye Barry, his wife and their two daughters will be moving into one of the homes being built in Edmonton.

"It takes off my shoulders and my daughters' shoulders that burden of paying rent," said Barry, who was also part of the volunteer team on the construction site on Monday.

He said approximately 45 per cent of his salary goes toward rent right now. When his new home is complete, he will pay the mortgage. But since it's through Habitat for Humanity, it won't be more than 25 per cent of his annual income.