Paying tribute to a leader who changed their world

The woman who founded the Special Olympics was his Martin Luther King Jr. Lagasse wrote: “She has courage and dedication, and she teaches me courage and dedication.’’

Lagasse never met Shriver. She was already ailing when he paid tribute to her in a speech at the Special Olympics 40th anniversary gala last year. But she left a deep imprint on him, and the loss he felt when the 88-year-old died at Cape Cod Hospital yesterday has reverberated through the heart of a community.

“She enriched our life tremendously,’’ said Lagasse’s mother, Deborah Lagasse. “Everything she did was to respect our children.’’

Yesterday, Special Olympics athletes, their family members, and advocates for people with disabilities spoke with conviction about the impact of Shriver’s work. They said she was a pioneering leader, as compassionate as she was driven.

“Mrs. Kennedy Shriver has done so much for me,’’ said Denise Carriere, a 35-year-old athlete from Andover who developed developmental disabilities after a childhood battle with meningitis. “She helped me so much, and more than I can tell you.’’

Christine Achilles, a 51-year-old athlete from Marlborough, remembered Shriver approaching her after she bowled in a Special Olympics in the 1980s. Shriver emphasized that she had been noticed, Achilles said.

“It is sad losing her,’’ she said. “She was in the hospital on Cape Cod while I was down there on the Cape. She was right there.’’

“She was really kind and inspirational,’’ said skier Melissa Reilly, who met Shriver after the 2005 Special Olympics games in Nagano, Japan.

Reilly said Shriver had recited the athlete’s oath with her: “Let me win. If I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.’’

“She’s an example, a shining star for women,’’ said Pamela McNair, the mother of a 16-year-old Marlborough athlete with Asperger’s syndrome. “Speaking from my heart, Special Olympics has introduced me to people I never would have met otherwise. It’s just made it a better place to live and made me a better person.’’

Joanne Jaxtimer, the mother of a 15-year-old Milton athlete with autism, said the Special Olympics have been a blessing for her family. “It is a wonderful program,’’ she said, extending her gratitude to Shriver.

“She was an extraordinary woman who led a most purposeful life,’’ said Jaxtimer.

Propelled by the plight of her sister Rosemary Kennedy, who was institutionalized for most of her life after a lobotomy left her with severe developmental disabilities, Shriver became a crusader for people with disabilities.

In 1957, she began directing the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, which works to improve the lives of people with intellectual disabilities. Friends and colleagues said she served as the organization’s unrelenting beacon.

“She was such a force, a powerful force,’’ said Doreen Croser, executive director of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

After Shriver’s brother John F. Kennedy was elected president, she used her influence to help create a presidential committee on mental retardation in 1961. Later, the committee evolved into the state developmental disabilities councils, according to Daniel Shannon, director of the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council.

“She used this incredible access she had and she combined it with an equal amount of passion,’’ said Steven M. Eidelman, who now directs the Kennedy foundation.

Shriver launched the camp that would become the Special Olympics on the lawn of her Maryland home.

“It was absolutely pioneering,’’ said Robert Johnson, president of the Massachusetts chapter of the Special Olympics.

Johnson said town officials were reluctant to let Shriver establish the camp. “They gave her the permit, but told her that lifeguards had to ring the pool, no more than an arm’s-length apart,’’ he said. “The fact is, they got in and swam like fish.’’

The camp was an immense success, and the first Special Olympics games were held in Chicago in 1968. Over the decades, the Special Olympics burgeoned into an international organization.

“In many ways, Special Olympics has been kind of a benchmark experience for people with disabilities,’’ said William Kiernan, director of the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Elin M. Howe, commissioner of the state’s Department of Developmental Services, called the Special Olympics “a major source of both recreational and social support for individuals not only in this state, but really, worldwide.’’

“It really has expanded our world,’’ said Jaxtimer, the mother of the athlete from Milton.

In his journal, Tyler Lagasse, the athlete from Tyngsborough, wrote that he was grateful for Shriver’s vision: for her dedication “to improving the quality of life for people with intellectual disabilities.’’

“Eunice has a dream,’’ he wrote.

John R. Ellement of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent James O’Brien also contributed to this report. Vivian Nereim can be reached at vnereim@globe.com.