Beverly Sills

Special mother to the special children

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Beverly Sills is known world over for her operatic talent. For over thirty years, she thrilled audiences with her beautiful voice and stage presence. Yet Sills has another talent, one that is not as well known.

As National Chair of the March of Dimes' Mothers' March on Birth Defects, Sills has helped to raise over $70 million in ten years. Often meeting with parents of birth-defected children and visiting the children in hospitals, Sills has chosen to use her position to raise funds for this organization.

Sills' reasons for devoting herself to the cause of eradicating birth defects stem from her children, Muffy and Peter. At age two, Muffy was diagnosed as suffering from severe hearing loss. Several months later, Peter was diagnosed as mentally retarded. After learning these agonizing facts, Sills left the stage to care for her children.

In time, and with encouragement from her husband, Peter Greenough, she resumed her singing career. And, when offered the chance to work with Mothers' March on Birth Defects, she seized it and has since worked countless hours to eliminate birth defects in all children,