Metro Detroit nonprofit gives big opportunity to aspiring musician, actress

DETROIT – Anna Pannell is an aspiring musician who won’t let anything stop her dreams.

Pannell was paralyzed due to a car crash when she was 1-year-old. At 22, she’s living life like a rockstar.

Being confined to wheelchair is all she’s ever known, yet she is unbound by her zest for life. But to so many in public, she is often invisible.

When she lays down some beats, it smooths over some of life’s wrinkles.

Like any other young person, she has big dreams. She aspires to be an actress and a rap star. She’s written song about George Floyd and social injustice, her feelings at being treated like a ghost and one of her favorites, “Wheelchair Rider.”

The Berkley based nonprofit the D-MAN Foundation understands and is working to make Pannell’s dreams come true. The nonprofit has arranged an elaborate music video for her first professional music video.

You can watch Paula Tutman’s full story in the video above.

More information on the D-MAN foundation can be found on its official website here.

More: Community news


About the Author

Paula Tutman is an Emmy award-winning journalist who came to Local 4 in 1992. She's married and the stepmother of three beautiful and brilliant daughters. Her personal philosophy in life, love and community is, "Do as much as you can possibly do, not as little as you can possibly get away with".

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