Eunice Kennedy Shriver: Champion for Change

Eunice Kennedy Shriver

Considered by her mother to be the most sensitive, religiously devout, and mature of the Kennedy children, Eunice Kennedy Shriver developed a particularly close bond with her older sister, Rosemary, who had intellectual disabilities. This connection helped foster a lifelong dedication to empowering those who may have otherwise been marginalized by society.

Shriver said “If I never met Rosemary, never knew anything about handicapped children, how would I have ever found out? Because nobody accepted them anyplace. So where would you find out? Unless you had one in your own family.”

For more than thirty years, Shriver served as a leader in the worldwide struggle to enhance the lives of people with intellectual disabilities.

After she graduated from Stanford University, she worked for the U.S. State Department in the Special War Problems Division and later became a social worker. Relocating to Chicago, Illinois in 1951, Shriver worked with the House of the Good Shepherd and the Chicago Juvenile Court.

In 1957, Shriver took over leadership of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation, named in honor of her late brother. During her tenure, the foundation aided in the creation of The President’s Committee on Mental Retardation (1961) as well as the development of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (1962).

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, Shriver visited institutions for people with intellectual disabilities. Appalled by the treatment of these individuals and motivated by the notion that given the right opportunities, they would be more capable than commonly believed, she began Camp Shriver in 1962.

For years, Camp Shriver provided a physical activity for developmentally challenged children, and Mrs. Shriver took a hands-on role, even jumping into the pool to give swimming lessons.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s Message of Hope

It was here that the Camp Shriver concept – through which sportspeople with intellectual disabilities can realize their growth potential – was developed.

The concept began to spread, and in 1968, the first International Special Olympics Games were held in Chicago. At the ceremony, Shriver announced the creation of a national program, the Special Olympics, formed to give people with intellectual disabilities “the chance to play, the chance to compete and the chance to grow.”

You are the stars and the world is watching you. By your presence, you send a message to every village, every city, every nation. A message of hope. A message of victory: “The right to play on any playing field? You have earned it. The right to study in any school? You have earned it. The right to hold a job? You have earned it. The right to be anyone’s neighbor? You have earned it.” The days of segregation and separation are over!
– Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Charge to the Athletes at the Opening Ceremonies of the International Summer Special Olympics Games, South Bend, Indiana, August 2, 1987

The first Special Olympics brought together 1,000 athletes from 26 states and Canada for competition. In December 1968, Special Olympics Inc. was established as a nonprofit charitable organization. Since then, the program has grown to almost three million athletes in more than 180 countries.

Mrs. Shriver’s family said, “She set out to change the world and to change us, and she did that and more.” Mrs. Shriver, her family said, “taught us by example and with passion what it means to live a faith-driven life of love and service to others.”

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