2000 Award Winner Sargent Shriver’s Legacy
We recently lost one of our own when Sargent Shriver passed away after losing a battle with Alzheimer’s. In 2000, Sargent Shriver and his wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, were Honored at The World of Childrens for their creativity, leadership and commitment to children with disabilities through their founding and endowment of The Special Olympics.
Sargent Shriver was a dreamer who knew how to turn his dreams in to lasting social change. He envisioned and founded the Peace Corps, the Job Corps and Project Head Start, three admirable programs that survive his death. However, one dream-turned-reality that held special meaning for Sargent Shriver was The Special Olympics, the project we Honored him for 2000. When I had the chance to meet him he told me, “The smiles of these children, who had been relegated to second class citizens, gives me the power to go on.”
Shriver strived to be available for “his children,” as he called them, and to make a lasting difference in their lives. For his vision, resilience and courage, these children – as well as all of us at World of Children – will forever be grateful for his time on this earth. I believe that there has been no better example of a “privileged person” giving himself up for the world’s most vulnerable children than Sargent Shriver. May he rest in peace.
Harry Leibowitz
Co-Founder/Chairman
World of Childrens