News Release

JFK NHS Celebrates Eunice Kennedy Shriver on the 100th Anniversary of Her Birth

Eunice Kennedy Shriver Official Portrait

David Lenz, 2009, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

News Release Date: May 27, 2021

John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historical Site, Friends of the JFK Birthplace, and Special Olympics Massachusetts to Host EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER 100, A LEGACY OF INCLUSION: A Virtual Event Commemorating the Life and Legacy of Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

Sat, July 10, 2021, 7:00 PM EDT

To register: www.nps.gov/jofi/eks100.htm
 

BROOKLINE, MA– John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site and Friends of the JFK Birthplace are partnering with Special Olympics Massachusetts, The Eunice Shriver Center at UMass Medical School, and others to celebrate Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s life and legacy with a virtual program on Saturday, July 10, the 100th anniversary of Mrs. Shriver’s birth. Eunice Kennedy Shriver was born in Brookline, founded Special Olympics, and has a huge legacy of shifting societal perceptions of people with intellectual disabilities. 

The virtual program will feature Mrs. Shriver’s son and longtime Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver. Included will be two panel discussions: one on Mrs. Shriver’s life and another on her legacy. Additional remarks and reflections will be provided by Town of Brookline Select Board Member and Former Chair Bernard Greene, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver portrait artist David Lenz, winner of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition organized by the National Portrait Gallery, as well as several disability advocates.

The first panel discission features Eunice Kennedy Shriver biographer Eileen McNamara and Rosemary Kennedy biographer Kate Clifford Larson, and Jorge Matos Valldejuli, Assistant Professor and Reference Librarian at Hostos Community College at The City University of New York (CUNY), moderated by Allison C. Carey, Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Shippensburg University and author of On the Margins of Citizenship: Intellectual Disability and Civil Rights in Twentieth Century America and coeditor of Disability Incarcerated: Disability and Imprisonment in the United States and Canada and Disability and Community.

The second panel of speakers focusing on Mrs. Shriver’s legacy, moderated by NBC10 Boston Anchor, Melody Mendez, will feature Special Olympics Massachusetts CEO Mary Beth McMahon, award-winning, Special Olympics athlete Tyler Lagasse, Drs. Jean Frazier and Carol Curtin of the Eunice Shriver Center at UMass Medical Center, and Dr. Diana Bianchi, head of the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, MD.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site preserves the birthplace (1917) and early boyhood home of the 35^th president of the United States. The modest house was the first home shared by the president’s parents, Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. John, the second of nine children, spent his formative years in Brookline as his family began its rise to national prominence. In 1966, Mrs. Kennedy returned to 83 Beals Street to commemorate her son’s life, restoring the birthplace to her recollection of its 1917 appearance. The historic house, collections, and neighboring Brookline community permit exploration of early influences that shaped the character and ambitions of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Due to renovations and exhibit maintenance, John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site will remain closed in 2021. Renovations are expected to be completed by late 2022. The house will not be open for tours while the renovations are underway. Once installed, the new visitor center will provide a wheelchair lift for access to the ground floor, an accessible restroom, and improved retail space. During the closure, John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS may be explored virtually through the site’s website: www.nps.gov/jofi. For more information, please call [phone], visit us online at www.nps.gov/jofi, or follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JFKennedyNHS and on Instagram at www.instagram.com/JFKennedyNPS.

Friends of the JFK Birthplace, established in 2020, is a private nonprofit community “friends group” formed to aid John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS in its mission to promote the significance of the site and to engage more effectively with the local, state and national community. Friends of JFK Birthplace also offers advice, assistance with event-planning, and volunteer support, and looks forward to fundraising on behalf of the site. For more information, call [phone] x16, email [e-mail], or go to www.nps.gov/jofi/getinvolved/partners.

Special Olympics Massachusetts is spreading inclusion to every town, every city, every school, every workplace, every community in Massachusetts. The athletes, coaches and volunteers of Special Olympics Massachusetts are changing the way the world sees individuals with intellectual disabilities. Learn more about us and how you can get involved today! Go to www.specialolympicsma.org or call [phone].

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center at UMass Medical School is dedicated to understanding and improving the challenges faced by individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and/or behavioral health disorders as well as supporting their families. The Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center’s outstanding research, training, service, and clinical care programs are devoted to supporting, empowering, and including people with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) and neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) in the community. For more information go to https://shriver.umassmed.edu or call [phone].