When actress Mary Tyler Moore first thought about volunteering on behalf of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation in 1983, she feared putting a face on the disease. After all, her face was one of the most recognizable on television, and it showed no flaws from the Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes she'd been diagnosed with in the 1960s.

"What if I, very healthy and active, had said, 'Look at this devastating disease,'" says Moore. "No one would have bought that." The Emmy Award-winning actress, who starred in the groundbreaking Mary Tyler Moore Show from 1970-77, also risked being stigmatized in the television industry if she spoke out about her incurable disease.

But Moore decided to help JDF anyway, raising funds for research as its international chairman. When she started, the foundation contributed $3 million annually for research. Today, it's $50 million as Moore films public service announcements and uses her celebrity to open doors on Capitol Hill for Congressional testimony and advocacy.

From June 20-22 she will shepherd a new generation of advocates to Washington when she chairs JDF's first Children's Congress. One hundred kids with diabetes, representing the 50 states, will testify at a hearing and meet with representatives. " 'Promise to Remember Me' is the battle cry," Moore says. "I think it's very hard to put the memory of a child out of your frontal lobe." She wants the public to understand the disease, and also to teach children to take a proactive approach in educating themselves and improving their quality of living.

"She has done so much to raise public awareness of the seriousness of diabetes," says John J. McDonough, the chairman of the board of JDF International. "She's been very up front about it, and she's been outspoken in several ways."

Moore had major surgery last fall to correct a diabetes-related eye problem so severe she could barely see.

She tells her story frankly, then describes the range of complications-from heart disease to kidney failure-facing diabetics. Daily insulin injections can keep the effects of the disease in check, but the drug is not a cure. One American dies from diabetes every three minutes.

Moore's candor complements JDF's aggressive pursuit of research to improve care and chances for a cure. Grants from the organization go to a handful of projects that appear most promising, such as a $20 million award to a cell transplant study at Harvard University. "We run it like a business," McDonough says of JDF, which to date has donated $290 million to research.

A common mantra is "From the bench to the bedside," as laboratory advances better the lives of patients. Moore's own life is a good example. She and husband Dr. S. Robert Levine live in New York and volunteer for JDF, and Moore continues her acting career. "I'm a just-right busy person," she says.

In the process, she continues to put the best face possible on diabetes.