Let the word go forth from this day forward and place that we will go anywhere, pay any price, bear any burden for any organization which raises $5.5 million in eight months to support Special Olympics athletes.
Thank you, Mr. Diehl for your kind words. I am fond of dozens of federal programs– certainly those I created:– Head Start, The Job Corps, Community Action, Foster Grandparents, Upward Bound, Community Health Centers, Legal Services, VISTA, College World Study Programs, etc. But, I have a very special regard for the U.S. Mint and its employees. You minted a coin to honor people with mental retardation. You manufactured those coins in the likeness of my wife (please indulge a husband in a little pride). For those of you who don’t know, my wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the Founder of Special Olympics, was the first living American woman ever depicted on a legal-tender coin of the United States Government. The coin was a success as were our 1995 World Games, the largest ever in our 28-year history. These results were achieved by people who were committed to one thing,– Service. Yours is public service; Special Olympics is voluntary service. Yet we have so much in common! By your service, you carry on a great tradition, – volunteerism.
You distinguished employees of the United States Federal Government, who take part in the annual CFC drive, render a great service to programs like Special Olympics which start from the bottom and go up, – By that I mean, we start with the least gifted human beings intellectually! We start with persons, nearly all of who are economically at the bottom or near it. We start with persons with little to no possibility of becoming self-sufficient, independent, or powerful in economic terms, in military terms, or in intellectual terms! Yes, we start from the bottom, and it’s those people on the bottom who inspire us, enlighten us and hold out a hope that in the 21st Century, all of us will be changed! – changed into people who respect our fellow human beings for what we can give to them, not what they can give to us!!
I’ll give you an example of what I mean,— It’s a new voluntary initiative which I find almost unbelievable. Listen to this story:
55,000 policemen and other law enforcement officials in the USA and abroad volunteer their time to participate in the Special Olympics Law Enforcement Torch Run. The Torch Run, like the CFC, is in large part a grass roots program, giving local and federal law enforcement officers an opportunity to raise funds and awareness for what they believe in. Just like you federal employees who serve the United States of America every day, tirelessly, and most recently, under great stress of criticism, and, in extreme cases, actual physical danger.
Why do 55,000 law enforcement officers go out into their communities promoting Special Olympics? Last year they raised $8 million for Special Olympics!! Why do tens of thousands of federal employees contribute to the Combined Federal Annual Giving Campaign? You do for some of the same reasons those law enforcement officers run! You believe that we as Americans, are fortunate to live in a country which offers each of us tremendous opportunities; but the most tremendous of all is the opportunity TO GIVE BACK. We believe it our duty as strongly as we believe in the fundamental right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” But, just because something is a “right,” doesn’t mean it’s “free-of- charge.” The payment required is Service.
At Special Olympics, almost all of the coaches, the referees, the medical doctors, the police officers, the starters and timers, the lawyers and accountants, the computer operators and the publicists nearly all work for nothing. (Something very new to the legal field!) No sports organization has so many volunteers – over one million! They give of themselves just as the athletes do, for the love of sport, for one another, and for our athletes!
You may or may not know this, but Special Olympics receives approximately half a million dollars a year from the CFC, from you! These monies are distributed throughout our US Programs, in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. That money is especially needed these days in the District of Columbia, which for the last two years has not received monies already appropriated and specifically earmarked for Special Olympics by Congress, as part of the D.C. Government’s budget.
The Special Olympics Movement is a grass roots operation, as is the CFC. There are unique opportunities for volunteerism at the local level. Participating in the Combined Federal Campaign is one way to demonstrate your generosity; but, so is volunteering for a favorite charity.
Volunteers are our secret. Almost everyone in Special Olympics volunteers. Our latest estimate reveals that approximately one million persons volunteer annually to serve in the Special Olympics Movement! So, less than 500 paid employees coach, lead and manage 1,250,000 Special Olympics athletes and in 30,000 annual events in 143 countries! Our cost is one hundred dollars per annum per athlete. No athletic program comes even close to that cost-benefit record! One hundred dollars per annum per athlete. That’s a number to remember!!!
I could go on and on about volunteers and service and the absolute need for the volunteer spirit which is an essential part of our American heritage. But, now a long talk has become too long. So, let me conclude with a story from my Peace Corps days: — (Yes, that’s right, I, too, was once a proud employee of the Federal Government.) Nothing will ever touch me more than the story I heard about a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa. It epitomizes the spirit which should permeate all “our habits of the heart.”
The story goes that a Peace Corps volunteer was walking up- country down a dusty road outside an African village. As he got near to the village, there was a mother and her child sitting alongside the road. The child said to the mother, “Look, Mother, there’s a white man!” And the mother said to the child, “No, darling, that’s not a white man, that’s a Peace Corps volunteer!!”
Let us work together for the day when nobody will say, “Look, there’s a white man,” or “there’s a poor man,” or “there’s a rich man,” but only: “Look there’s a volunteer who is serving his or her fellow human beings.”
So, let me thank you and congratulate you who have committed yourselves to service. Through the Combined Federal Campaign, you are able to give essential support to American Enterprises which truly represent our country’s loftiest ideals. Remember always just one thought:— Service Service, Service is our most important product. For in the end, it will be the servants who are the saviours of us all.
