| Notes |
While in college at Harvard, John Simon volunteered for the Massachusetts Special Olympics, and became thoroughly motivated by its mission. But when he moved to England in the late 1980s as a Rhodes Scholar, and sought similar volunteer work, he was surprised to find that there was no equivalent to the Special Olympics in the UK. Wanting to fill that niche (even if only on a modest scale), Simon organized “KEEN” (“Kids Enjoy Exercise Now”), a local effort to teach tennis to kids with disabilities. Working alongside local parent Kryzia Gossage and marshaling his friends as volunteers, Simon drove the program’s early success. When Simon left Oxford, he transitioned leadership of KEEN. Ultimately, Simon’s friend Elliot Portnoy drove broad expansion of the organization; in the early 1990s, KEEN made its way across the ocean; it now has affiliates in eight cities in the United States. The work was immensely rewarding, Simon recalls, but he found himself equally excited by the idea that a powerful philanthropic concept can be “replicated.” |