page_title: Eunice Kennedy Shriver
section_title: Charity work and awards
hierarchical_section_title: Eunice Kennedy Shriver / Charity work and awards
caption_attribution_description: English: Eunice Kennedy Shriver
context_page_description: Eunice Mary Kennedy Shriver, DSG was an American philanthropist and a member of the Kennedy family. Shriver is known as the founder of the Special Olympics, a sports organization for persons with physical and intellectual disabilities. For her efforts on behalf of the disabled, Shriver was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984.
  Shriver was a sister of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, and U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith, as well as the sister-in-law of Jacqueline Kennedy. She was the wife of Sargent Shriver, who was the United States Ambassador to France and was the Democratic nominee for Vice President of the United States in 1972.
context_section_description: Shriver became executive vice president of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation in 1957. She shifted the organization's focus from Catholic charities to research on the causes of intellectual disabilities and humane ways to treat them. This interest eventually culminated in, among other things, the Special Olympics movement.
  A longtime advocate for children's health and disability issues, Shriver championed the creation of the President's Panel on Mental Retardation in 1961. The panel was significant in the movement from institutionalization to community integration in the US and throughout the world. Shriver was a key founder of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), a part of the National Institutes of Health in 1962. She has also helped to establish numerous other university programs, government initiatives, health-care facilities, and support service networks throughout the country.
  In 1962, Shriver founded Camp Shriver, a camp for children with special needs that was held on her Maryland farm. Camp Shriver later evolved into the Special Olympics. Shriver founded the Special Olympics in 1968. That year, the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation helped to plan and fund the First International Special Olympics Summer Games, held in Chicago, Illinois. In her speech at the opening ceremony, Shriver said, "'The Chicago Special Olympics prove a very fundamental fact, the fact that exceptional children — children with mental retardation — can be exceptional athletes, the fact that through sports they can realize their potential for growth.'" Special Olympics Inc. was established as a nonprofit charity in 1968; since that time, nearly three million athletes have participated.
  In 1969, Shriver moved to France and pursued her interest in intellectual disability there. She started organizing small activities with Paris organizations, mostly reaching out to families of kids who had special needs to provide activities for them, laying the foundation for a robust international expansion of the Special Olympics in the late 1970s and 1980s.
  In 1982, Shriver founded the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Center for Community of Caring at University of Utah, Salt Lake City. The Community is a "grades K-12, whole school, comprehensive character education program with a focus on disabilities... adopted by almost 1,200 schools nationwide and in Canada."
  Shriver was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1984 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan for her work on behalf of persons with disabilities. In 1988, she received the Laetare Medal, considered the highest award for American Catholics, by the University of Notre Dame. In 1990 Shriver was awarded the Eagle Award from the United States Sports Academy. The Eagle Award is the Academy's highest international honor and was awarded to Shriver for her significant contributions to international sport.
  In 1992, Shriver received the Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.
  For her work in nationalizing the Special Olympics, Shriver received the Civitan International World Citizenship Award. Her advocacy on this issue has also earned her other awards and recognitions, including honorary degrees from numerous universities. She is the second American and only woman to appear on a US coin while still living. Her portrait is on the obverse of the 1995 commemorative silver dollar honoring the Special Olympics. On the reverse is the quotation attributed to Shriver, "As we hope for the best in them, hope is reborn in us."
  In 1998, Shriver was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
  Shriver received the 2002 Theodore Roosevelt Award (the Teddy), an annual award given by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to a graduate from an NCAA member institution who earned a varsity letter in college for participation in intercollegiate athletics, and who ultimately became a distinguished citizen of national reputation based on outstanding life acc
caption: Eunice Kennedy Shriver in 1980
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