Anthony Shriver

Family

American noted family, the son of Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. He became the president and founder of Best Buddies, a group that fosters friendship between college students and youths who are mentally handicapped. The youngest of five kids, his dad, Sargent, is founding director of the Peace Corps and his mom, Eunice Kennedy, founder of the Special Olympics. An older sister, Maria Shriver, is married to movie actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Shriver was especially inspired by his aunt, Rosemary, who was born mentally retarded. Rosemary was the third of Rose and Joseph Kennedy Sr.'s nine kids and underwent a lobotomy in 1941 which left her partially paralyzed. She was later institutionalized and now lives under supervised care. Shriver remembers, as a youngster, the stares people would give them when Rosemary accompanied the family to church. While attending Georgetown University in 1987 he came up with an idea to get mentally retarded people out into mainstream life society through one-on-one friendships with others. He got 50 student volunteers and paired them with individuals from group homes and special schools. After graduating the following year he got calls from students at other schools wanting to start their own chapters. Shriver turned his college project into a full time job by founding and becoming the first president of Best Buddies which has grown to more than 6,500 participants in 172 chapters around the world. He met his Cuban-born wife, Alina Mojica (born 1/05/1965) in 1991 at a Best Buddies cocktail party and they married two years later on 7/02/1993. She had a four-year-old son, George (born 9/04/1988), and they had daughter Eunice on 1/04/1994 and daughter Francesca on 12/12/1994. His mother Eunice died on August 11, 2009. His father Sargent Shriver died on January 18, 2011. Link to Wikipedia biography