Best Buddies International Statement, 19 April 2013

MIAMI, April 19, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Best Buddies International is a global charitable organization founded in 1989 by Anthony Kennedy Shriver, which is recognized for successfully matching people with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) in one-to-one friendships with student volunteers throughout the United States and overseas; in order to improve the socialization, leadership and employment opportunities available to persons with IDD.

As other educational and extracurricular organizations in the Boston area have discovered consistent with recent media information conveyed preliminarily about the Boston Marathon bomb suspect, who is identified as Dzhokar Tsarnaev, Best Buddies has come to learn that said individual was indeed a past volunteer participant within Best Buddies' local high-school chapter at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School; exclusively during the 2010 scholastic high-school year, after which scholastic period he ceased his after-school association with Best Buddies.

Sharing his sentiments alongside the rest of the country and indeed the international community, Anthony Shriver, Chairman of Best Buddies International, stated that "having been born in Boston and raised among this extraordinary community, I firmly know and always have experienced the infinite generosity and resilience that distinguishes the citizens of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and extend first and foremost my heartfelt prayers to everyone affected by the horrific terror events of this past week."

SOURCE Best Buddies International