“It is glorious to have one’s birthday associated with a work like this. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. And that kinship, which human suffering evokes, is perhaps the closest of all, for we know that those who work to help the suffering find true spiritual fellowship in that labor of love.”

-Franklin D. Roosevelt, Radio Address for the Birthday Ball, January 30, 1940.

On this day, we’re wishing FDR a happy birthday – someone who truly knew that the best thing was to make one’s special day about helping others: Birthday Balls were fundraisers held across the country on President Roosevelt’s birthday, where the attendees were to “dance so that others may walk.” The first celebration was in 1934, where over one million dollars was raised for the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, a therapeutic rehabilitation center that FDR created for polio patients.

Pictured above, a poster for The President Hotel’s birthday ball “so we may dance again” to raise funds in support of the fight to cure infantile paralysis.

via: Four Freedoms Park