Eunice Shriver: Mother of the Special Olympics

In honor of Mother’s Day this weekend, it’s fitting to take a look at the woman who founded the Special Olympics in 1968. A long-time advocate for better schools, programs, and acceptance for the mentally-challenged, Shriver started Camp Shriver, a camp for mentally-disabled children, at her family’s Maryland estate in 1962. She taught the campers to swim in the family pool and organized other sports activities.
Camp Shriver, now a collection of more than 300 camps, led to the creation of the Special Olympics in 1968. The first games were held in Chicago with 1000 athletes with intellectual disabilities from …read more