From backyard camp to global movement.

The global Special Olympics movement got its start on July 20, 1968, when the First International Special Olympics Games were held at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. But the concept of Special Olympics was born much earlier when Eunice Kennedy Shriver started a day camp for people with intellectual disabilities at her home in 1962.

Welcome to Camp Shriver

Shriver believed that people with intellectual disabilities were far more capable than commonly believed and deserving of the same opportunities and experiences as others. So, in June 1962, she invited 35 boys and girls with intellectual disabilities to Camp Shriver, a day camp at her home in Rockville, Maryland, to explore their capabilities in a variety of sports and physical activities.

Camp Shriver became an annual event, and the Kennedy Foundation gave grants to universities, recreation departments and community centers. In 1963, the Foundation supported 11 similar camps throughout the United States. By 1969, the Foundation supported 32 camps across the country that served 10,000 children with intellectual disabilities.

Game time

In the early 1960s, Dr. William Freeberg, then Chairman of the Recreation and Outdoor Education Department at Southern Illinois University, worked with the Kennedy Foundation to develop one-week workshops for recreation directors across the country. The workshops focused on the principles that everyone, including people with disabilities, benefits from recreation and has talents and gifts to share with others. In 1965, 10 recreation teachers from the Chicago Park District attended one of Freeberg's workshops on a grant from the Foundation. One of those teachers was Anne Burke, and in 1967, she proposed holding a citywide track meet modeled after the Olympics to raise awareness of the program. Freeberg, who had joined the team as a consultant, suggested they develop a proposal to submit to Shriver at the Kennedy Foundation.

Shriver immediately saw the potential of the idea and asked Burke to expand its scope to include more sports and athletes from across the United States. Shriver sent Kennedy Foundation staff to Chicago to work with Burke and the Chicago Park District to start planning and announced that the Kennedy Foundation would provide a grant to underwrite the event. On July 20, 1968, Shriver opened the Chicago Special Olympics (the First International Special Olympics Games), which were held in Chicago's Soldier Field with 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities from 26 U.S. states and Canada competing in athletics, floor hockey and aquatics.

"The Chicago Special Olympics prove a very fundamental fact," Shriver said in her Opening Ceremonies address, "the fact that exceptional children — children with mental retardation — can be exceptional athletes, the fact that through sports they can realize their potential for growth." Shriver also announced a new national program — Special Olympics — to offer people with intellectual disabilities everywhere "the chance to play, the chance to compete and the chance to grow."

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who attended the First International Special Olympics Games that day, said to Shriver, "You know, Eunice, the world will never be the same after this." He was right.