Holy Cross Grad Makes a Career of Working for Children
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7-Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said his family was surprised when his nephew, Mark Shriver, married because they thought he was the likeliest in his generation to become a priest.
Sen. Kennedy said Mr. Shriver was particularly attentive to children. “He always had a special magic with them.”
Mr. Shriver, 41, who has devoted much of his life to children’s issues, is now the head of U.S. programs for Save the Children, a nonprofit organization that focuses on child welfare at home and abroad. His department runs literacy and nutrition programs in 12 states aimed at children in rural and impoverished areas.
A graduate of College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mr. Shriver credits his years in Jesuit schools with nurturing his commitment to helping people. “They’re drilling it in your head that there is a need for social justice,” he said. “It’s part of the church’s teaching, and it’s part of what we’re called to do.”
While an undergraduate majoring in history, he tutored kids in a Worcester public school as part of a program called “Community Cares,” which he said sought to bring values into the schools.
During the summers he worked for his brother, Timothy Shriver, who directed the Connecticut Precollege Enrichment Program at the University of Connecticut campus in Hartford, which was one of the “upward bound” programs that their father, Sargent Shriver, had helped start.
The program tutored “high-risk, high-potential” kids, said Timothy Shriver, who currently is chairman of Special Olympics, which his mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founded. There were classes, but there were also canoeing trips, and basketball and softball games.
During the summer, the tutors-which included the Shrivers’ brother, Anthony, and their cousin, John F. Kennedy Jr.-lived in dorms with their charges, and friendships developed, Timothy Shriver said. There wasn’t much age difference between the college tutors and the high school students they worked with.
“It was a high-impact experience for Mark,” said Timothy Shriver, who said his brother was enthusiastic about the work from the beginning.
One of the friendships Mark Shriver developed was with a high school freshman named Derrick Campbell. His single mom “worked about 50 jobs to keep us in line,” Mr. Campbell said.
Mr. Shriver was his English tutor, Mr. Campbell said, and “he was hard on me. We butted heads for a while.” When the summer ended and Mr. Campbell returned to school, Mr. Shriver wrote him a letter from London, where he was studying, asking about his progress in English and trying to motivate him to do well.
“It struck a chord with me,” Mr. Campbell said. He said Mr. Shriver’s attitude was, “Hey, you can have it, too.. You have just as much right to do these things as anyone.”
When he graduated from Connecticut College years later, Mr. Campbell was persuaded by Mr. Shriver to put off starting a business career for a year or two and instead to work on “turning the tide” for underprivileged kids. Mr. Campbell is now a financial services adviser in New York City.
Mr. Shriver worked for Gov. William Donald Schaefer of Maryland, who had begun the process of deinstitutionalizing juvenile delinquents in the state, finding other ways to rehabilitate them, according to Mr. Shriver.
He left that job in 1988 to start the Choice program, which worked to rehabilitate children who had been in trouble with the law .
In 1994, Mr. Shriver was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates. “He had a lot of credibility on children’s issues,” said colleague Peter Franchot, who like Mr. Shriver represented Montgomery County and sat next to him in the chamber. Del. Franchot said Mr. Shriver became the legislator everyone looked to for guidance on children’s issues.
In 1999 Mr. Shriver became chairman of the Children, Youth and Family subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee.
“He represents the people the powerful forget are there,” Del. Franchot said.
In 2002, Mr. Shriver ran for Congress in Maryland’s 8 th district and lost in the primary to Chris Van Hollen, who defeated the Republican incumbent in the general election. The next year Mr. Shriver joined Save the Children.
Jeanne-Aimee De Marrais, Save the Children’s director of external affairs, said Mr. Shriver, when he came aboard, introduced the literacy initiative as an extension of his work in the legislature, because “for children to overcome poverty they have to learn to read.”
Mr. Shriver said his department at Save the Children concentrates on literacy and nutritional after-school programs because “we wanted to do a couple of things exceedingly well.” He also was involved in child welfare efforts in the Gulf Coast this fallin response to the displacement of so many children by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Investment in children and education is a passion for Mr. Shriver, and he said that legislation that focuses only on accountability is not enough. “If we were really serious about children being our most important resource we’d be investing in early childhood education, investing in our K-12 system,” he said.
Mr. Shriver and his wife, Jeanne, have three children, Tommy, Molly and Emma. He said they inspire him to help other kids. Emma, who is nine months old, “has a mind like a sponge,” he said. “If you work with them, they’ll do great in school,” he said.
“Kids in poor areas are just as talented” as his own children, he said, and they deserve the opportunity to succeed, too.
Timothy Shriver said his brother was “crazy in love with his kids,” and devoted every moment he could to them when he wasn’t traveling for work.
Both Timothy Shriver said Sen. Kennedy describe Mark Shriver’s commitment to social justice for children as emotional, not intellectual. Mark Shriver himself quoted Martin Luther King’s sentiment about the “paralysis of analysis” and the Jesuits’ call to be a “thinker in action” as an explanation for his philosophy. Rather than studying child poverty, he works with it.
Mr. Shriver said he had not ruled out the possibility of returning to politics some day, “but I’m not dreaming of it.” His brother, Timothy, said he’d be “surprised if he didn’t find a way back in over time.”
Their uncle, Sen. Kennedy, said his nephew seems absorbed in his current work. “He gets a great deal of satisfaction from helping children,” the senator said. He didn’t say whether he thought Mr. Shriver would reenter the family business.
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