Eunice Mary Kennedy Shriver (born July 10, 1921) is a member of the Kennedy family and founder of the Special Olympics. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, she was the fifth of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Kennedy.

In 1944, Eunice Kennedy graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Science/Social Thought. On May 23, 1953 she married Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr. at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. Sargent became the United States Ambassador to France from 1968 to 1970 and the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate in 1972. Eunice and Sargent had five children and seventeen grandchildren, the second most of any of the children of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy, second only to her brother, Robert F. Kennedy, who has eleven children and thirty-two grandchildren:

Eunice actively campaigned for her older brother John F. Kennedy during the 1960 United States presidential election, and in 1968, she helped Ann McGlone Burke nationalize the Special Olympics movement and is the only living woman whose portrait appears on a U.S. coin, the 1995 commemorative Special Olympics silver dollar. In 2003, she supported her son-in-law Arnold Schwarzenegger's successful bid for governor of California.

Upon the death of her sister, Rosemary Kennedy, on January 7, 2005, Eunice became the oldest of the four then surviving children of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. Her younger sister Patricia Kennedy Lawford died on September 17, 2006. Eunice has suffered several health setbacks in recent years, and on November 18, 2007, she was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital . She spent several weeks at the hospital . On January 28, 2008, she was present at American University when Senator Ted Kennedy announced his endorsement of Barack Obama's presidential campaign .