A Butler man and owner of several local McDonald’s franchises who was best known as a champion of organizations for people with mental disabilities, is being remembered by friends and family members as a “silent giant.”

James Sweeney died Saturday. He was 67.

Sweeney served as a board member of ARC of Butler County and for the Pennsylvania Special Olympics in Butler County, taking over the running of the event in the early 1980s with Chuck Kuntz. Both had been board members at the ARC for years at that point, Kuntz said. He said Sweeney was one of the event’s biggest contributors every year, and would donate food and servers from his restaurants each year during the Olympics’

summer games. It was just who his friend was as a person, Kuntz said. He wanted to help.

“I think he just wanted to help the handicapped,” Kuntz said. “He was very concerned with the community. Very concerned with the athletes. He wasn’t a hands-off person. He was there talking to them, socializing with them.”

Sweeney’s wife, Cynthia, said he served on the board of each organization for about eight years, and was a man of strong faith who believed his success should be used to give other people a leg up.

The Sweeneys owned four McDonald’s franchises in the Butler area, and employed many people with mental disabilities in different positions at the businesses, she said. It was one of her husband’s ways of reaching out to people less fortunate than himself.

“He felt that he had been particularly blessed in his life, and he wanted to help others,” she said. “He was always aware that others just weren’t as fortunate as we were, and wanted to give everybody a chance.”

That concern with the less fortunate also extended to the community-at-large, said Millie Pinkerton, the president of Rotary Club of Butler County. Pinkerton and her husband, Dale, had known Sweeney for more than two decades — first meeting in the 1990s at one of the club’s chicken barbecues, where Sweeney showed up with a meat thermometer to ensure the meat was being cooked properly.

“He was just a really fine man,” Pinkerton said. “If there was a cause he believed in, he was always there. Our Rotary club’s going to miss him. He did a lot for the community.”

In later years, as he dealt with health problems, Pinkerton said Sweeney still managed to attend some Rotary events, and kept in touch via e-mail when he was unable to attend.

Dale Pinkerton called Sweeney “a silent giant,” who, along with his wife, worked tirelessly to better the community.

“He was a man who really did everything behind the scenes,” said Pinkerton. “But did so much good for our community and the organizations that he belonged to.”

Cynthia Sweeney agreed, and said her husband was never interested in being the center of attention. He just wanted to make sure the work got done.

“He was everyone’s cheerleader,” Sweeney said. “He didn’t have to be the star. He wanted everyone to have a chance.”

His obituary is on page 6 of today’s paper.