CLIFTON – Living alongside children makes life a song for Chanise Renae.
Actually, Renae was a child herself when Whitney Houston’s rendition of the National Anthem exploded during halftime at the XXV Super Bowl.
“I remember being mesmerized because she had a beautiful voice,” recalled Renae. “As a child I thought “Wow, I want to be able to sing like that.” I told a really good friend of mine who was, and still is an aspiring actress. She told me that it was still not too late for me and to go for it.
This Sunday, Renae will perform for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s (JDRF)”Walk to Cure Diabetes” scheduled for the Garret Mountain campus of Berkeley College.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately three million Americans have Type1 diabetes. The condition, most often diagnosed in childhood, strikes suddenly but poses a lifetime of deadly threats that – if left unmanaged – include heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure and amputation.
The annual Walk is therefore a way to draw healthy crowds in the name of eradicating an all-too common disease.
After all, lending her voice to important causes is nothing new for Renae.
These include the Philadelphia 76ers, Metro Stars, March of Dimes, American Cancer Society, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society as well as the annual Passaic County 9-11 memorial service.