BOSTON (WHDH) - Best Buddies Founder Anthony Shriver is reflecting on the organization’s mission ahead of Saturday’s Best Buddies Challenge: Hyannis Port that will see cyclists and runners coming together to help build a more inclusive world.
Best Buddies helps people with intellectual and developmental disabilities find friendships, land jobs, and live more fulfilling, independent lives. Shriver said creating that connection is what inspired him to start the organization from his college dorm room more than 30 years ago.
“Inherently every human being wants to be part of community, and every human being’s happier, and more joyful, and feels love when they’re part of a community,” Shriver said. “Every dream they have is really possible. And we develop and continue to build on that – make them feel like they’re important, that they count, and they have a place in our community.”
The passion for helping others runs in Shriver’s family. His mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founded the Special Olympics.
“She really saw Best Buddies as a great extension of what Special Olympics does in the sports arena,” Shriver said. “I think she’d be really proud. She loved the cycling event. She used to love riding on a tandem bike with me. She loved participating, she loved opening up her home in Hyannis Port and welcoming guests in, and celebrating people with special needs, and showing gratitude for all the blessings that God’s given her.”
Her drive was deeply personal – inspired by her sister, Rosemary Kennedy, who lived with intellectual disabilities. Shriver said his mother made it her mission to ensure people with disabilities were included, not overlooked.
“[She] Really believed that people with special needs would make great friends, and deserve to be sat at every table, and deserve to be fully integrated, included, in community life,” Shriver said.
Shriver is continuing that legacy and helping people have more independence and opportunity.
“I can’t imagine not having a job,” he said. “Having a job and feeling a sense of purpose every day, and waking up and going someplace that, you know, you feel like you’re needed, and that you contribute, and that you’re part of a community, I think is key to being a human being and being alive.”
7NEWS is a proud partner of Best Buddies. The relationship was forged by the late owner of the station, Ed Ansin. Several 7NEWS on-air talent will be participating in the challenge on Saturday.
“He [Ansin] loved that the station could magnify our mission, you know, we got to always reach out to those that are left out and we got to give them attention,” Shriver said. “We got to give them the microphone as well…and I think Ed Ansin really believed that, understood that.”
New England Patriots Quarterback Drake Maye is Honorary Chair for this year’s challenge.
“Drake Maye, he’s been a big contributor, stepped up as honorary chair the last few years,” Shriver said. “He really cares. Super humble, really nice, willing to do whatever we want him to do. You know, shows up, plays golf, shoots baskets with the kids.”
The Best Buddies’ mission is to focus on an individual’s strengths, help them build friendships, and open doors to community connections.
“Know that we’re doing great work with the money that you raise. I hope that makes everybody who participates super proud when they see the jobs we’re finding – when they see the housing that we’ve got now up there in Boston. And so much of it’s a result of the fundraising that so many people in Massachusetts have done,” Shriver said. “That’s why Best Buddies continues to grow. That’s why Best Buddies is a success. That’s why we’re able to deliver these incredible programs year after year – because of the amazing generosity of people from New England.”
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