Last Best Buddies Ball goes out in a blaze of glitz
October 21st, 2008
From the Washington Post:
In the two decades since Anthony Kennedy Shriver came up with the idea, the annual Best Buddies Ball has become one of the hottest galas on Washington’s social calendar.
Held at the home of his parents, Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the event has drawn politicians, celebrities and Kennedys in support of a charity that pairs people with intellectual disabilities with friends and mentors.
This year’s iteration raised $3.35 million and was the last of its kind, as the senior Shrivers have put their house on the market and Anthony Shriver is planning to replace the gala with a cycling event. An excerpt:
“Sargent Shriver and Eunice Shriver have probably touched more people with their volunteerism than any other couple in American history,” said Ted Leonsis, AOL’s vice chairman emeritus and Washington Capitals owner. “Now that kind of activist philanthropy is en vogue, but they really are the godparents of that movement.”
Lowell P. Weicker Jr., a former U.S. senator and governor from Connecticut, has a son with Down syndrome and said were it not for the Shrivers, “he and others would go on forgotten by America.”
(Photo: Brett Banford, of ‘So You Think You Can Dance,’ flanked by beauty queens. Photo from the Washington Post)
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