Contact: Forsyth: JoAnne Vose 617-262-5200 x276
Anita Harris anita.m.harris@harriscom.com
Kennedy: Brent Carney 617-565-3170
MEDIA ADVISORY December 5, 2003
SEN. TED KENNEDY TO ATTEND CEREMONY HONORING HIS FATHER DEC. 9
Coverage in Boston Globe; Univision
Mayor Menino, City Councilors Consalvo and Ross, State Rep Teahan
to attend
Boston--Senator Edward Kennedy, (D-MA) will participate in a ceremony
commemorating his father, the late Joseph P. Kennedy, at The Forsyth
Institute, on Tuesday, December 9, 2003, at 11:30 AM.
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, City Councilors Robert Consalvo and Michael
Ross, State Representative Kathleen Teahan and other invited guests are
expected to attend.
At the ceremony, the Senator will unveil a plaque displaying photographs
of his father and of a school bus the senior Kennedy funded to transport
thousands of schoolchildren to Forsyth in the early twentieth century.
"We are pleased to honor Joseph Kennedy and his family for their
generosity at a critical time in Forsyth’s history and to recognize the
Kennedy family’s ongoing tradition of support for the public’s health, said
Dominick P. DePaola, President and CEO of the Forsyth Institute.
Forsyth, now a renowned scientific research organization, was originally
founded in 1910 to provide free dental care for children. In the early
1920s, the senior Kennedy funded transportation to Forsyth to express
gratitude when the Senator’s brother, the late president John F. Kennedy,
survived a childhood bout of scarlet fever. Then-Mayor Thomas Curley
subsequently allocated city funds to bus public school students to Forsyth
for dental care.
Between 1914 and 1965, more than half a million Boston area
schoolchildren were treated at Forsyth—including Mayor Menino.
Today, Forsyth is known for its scientific work on a vaccine for dental
cavities, for bioengineering teeth and bone; for discoveries in the areas of
molecular genetics, immunology and oral microbiology; and for clinical
research focused on preventing and treating periodontal disease. Forsyth is
capable of integrating basic and translational research aimed at developing
drugs and products and enhancing patient care.
But the Institute has not lost sight of its roots. Recently, it
established the Forsyth Center for Children’s Oral Health to develop a
comprehensive "wellness" model of care aimed at keeping children fee of oral
disease for life.
*
The Forsyth Institute is an independent, nonprofit research organization
focused on oral, craniofacial and related biomedical science.
