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City Year CEO Reflects On Sargent Shriver's Legacy

BOSTON (CBS) - At City Year in Boston on this Martin Luther King Day, the spirit of activism is alive, with thoughts on a man who helped inspire the organization. City Year Co-Founder and CEO Michael Brown his thoughts are with the Shriver family, hearing news that Sargent Shriver, who suffers from Alzheimer's, has been hospitalized.

Brown says, "He probably had more impact on more lives, literally millions of people, than any other person it the 20th century, trying to have positive change in our society."

Brown says he was deeply inspired by Shriver and the Peace Corps which he founded.

WBZ-TV's Karen Anderson reports.

"When we were starting City Year, he was a tremendous role model for us, and of course he founded the Peace Corps, he literally willed it into being. He went from Congressional office to Congressional office and insisted that citizens be called on to service their country when they're young to represent them all around the globe."

Shriver created a number of service organizations in addition to the Peace Corps, including Vista, Job Corps, Legal Services, Upward Bound and Community Action.

"His sense of optimism, his sense of idealism, he called it a practical idealism. He really summoned these tremendous citizen energies and he exuded this sense you could do anything if you put your mind to it. That deeply inspired us."

He explains, "When i think of Sargent Shriver I think of a 'can do' spirit that says never give up anything is possible and believe in the best in people."

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