Thank you, Robin Roberts.... You are one of the most famous and most competent experts on sports anywhere in the world. We are honored by your presence here this morning.
Very Reverend Joseph DeAndrea
Ambassador Joseph Verner Reed
Ambassador Don Juan Antonio Yanez-Barnuevo of Spain
My friend and colleague, The President of Special Olympics, Doug Single
United States Ambassador to the U.N., Edward Perkins
The representative of the Governor of New York State, Elin Howe
The representative of the Mayor of New York City, Anne Emmerman
Distinguished Special Olympics Athletes and their Coaches
Most of all...The Founder and Creative Genius of Special Olympics, Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Twenty-five years ago when Special Olympics began no one would have predicted this event this morning at the United Nations.
No one would have predicted that Special Olympics would be operating now in 125 countries, everywhere in the world. To paraphrase a famous statement..."The sun never sets on ‘Special Olympics’”... At this moment, as we meet at the United Nations Headquarters, Special Olympians are training and competing all over Western Europe, in the Middle East, and southward through the African continent.
Special Olympics is not an event which occurs once every four years. It is a movement, in continual operation, with competitions and Games, day after day, week after week, summer and winter, north and south, all over the world.
Twenty-five years ago no one would have dreamed that Special Olympics’ income and expenditures would now exceed $100,000,000 per annum, -- freely contributed by millions and millions of small donors everywhere.
No one would have guessed that Special Olympics would become the largest, world-wide, private philanthropy created in the 20th Century.
No one would have anticipated any of these unique and unprecedented achievements, -- no one, -- except possibly my wife!!
I’ve seen her at Buckingham Palace, at the Elysee Palace, in the White House in Washington, in the Kremlin in Moscow, with the Pope in Rome, with the Queen of England, the King of Nepal, with Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, U-2, the Poynter Sisters, Sinead O’Connor, and Madonna!!!
I’ve watched her produce five healthy babies, mother them to childhood achievements and inspire them to become TV “stars”, public school superintendents of education, lawyers, financiers, journalists, originators of new charities, all before any of them reached even 35 years of age.
But even she never imagined that “Special Olympics” would become the largest, multi-sports program in the world, -- except for football, or soccer as we call that fabulous sport.
Yet, here we are all, all of us, celebrating that reality.
Is Special Olympics the only, wholly supra-national, wholly egalitarian, wholly charitable enterprise of this century? Maybe it is. Maybe these qualities explain its magical and universal acceptance.
Whatever the reasons, we are all here this morning rejoicing. We are happy for our athletes, their parents and brothers and sisters. We are grateful to the distinguished public officials here, and the Heads of State everywhere, who have endorsed and helped Special Olympics.
We are happy that the United Nations has honored us by welcoming us to these beautiful surroundings. We hope that we, too, will help to unite nations by uniting all the peoples of the world in service to the least of our brothers and sisters, -- the mentally retarded persons of all nations and races. There are 250,000,000 such persons alive today!! May their innocence and affectionate natures help us to become more like them in character as they become more like us in competence, through programs like Special Olympics.
Yes, there is a brave new world, not just another holocaust, waiting to be born. Skin-heads in Eastern Germany will not prevail. Religious violence in the Balkans will subside. The struggling peoples of the Southern Hemisphere will gain acceptance and prosperity.
And in all these places Special Olympics will be present, nurturing the weakest and bringing new hope and dignity to those who need us most, -- our children, our brothers and sisters, our friends, the mentally handicapped persons of our world.
