Special Olympics Be a fan of A Very Special Christmas
A Very Special Christmas
Through bold innovation and enormous generosity, the record industry has made beautiful music for Special Olympics athletes since 1987. The benefit recording series has become the largest financial source in Special Olympics' history, enabling the organization to respond with hope in areas around the world where people... with intellectual disabilities are still perceived as less than worthy, less than capable, even less than human.
The founding idea for the A Very Special Christmas series came from producer Jimmy Iovine as a way to memorialize his father, who had passed away during the holiday season. Iovine’s wife, Vicki, suggested the record benefit Special Olympics, the organization for which she was working as a volunteer. Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, the “A” and “M” of the albums’ label, A&M Records, along with Bobby Shriver, made the first album possible. Selling 1 million copies in its first year, the premiere album, A Very Special Christmas, released in 1987, set a precedent for the following albums, which have generated more than US$100 million in for Special Olympics―the most ever raised by a benefit recording series. Disbursed in grants by the Special Olympics Christmas Records Trust, the monies raised each year by the albums/CDs play a crucial role in the lives of the least-advantaged Special Olympics athletes around the world where there are inaccurate and prejudiced views about people with intellectual disabilities.
For example, grants from A Very Special Christmas enabled Special Olympics to implement programs in such countries as Russia, China and Uganda, and as seed funding to build new Programs in places like Timor Leste, Cambodia, Laos and Lesotho. Of 89 Special Olympics Programs that receive Christmas Record grants, 25 percent are classified by the United Nations as operating in Least Developed Countries. In these countries, the need for outreach is critical, as many are unable to provide support for their citizens with intellectual disabilities. As a parent in Siberia lamented,
“If you are the mother of a child with intellectual disabilities, you have to drop out of professional life because you child needs you. No one wants me or my child,” she says. “There is no place other than Special Olympics that will include us.” The Special Olympics Christmas albums/CDs have given Special Olympics the power to forever change lives. They make possible another kind of music: the rousing cheers of proud parents and friends, where once there was only the stifling silence of ignorance and fear.
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