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Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis, GH) has been hard at work planning a star-studded ALS fundraiser that will take place on May 4 in Glendale, CA.
“This is going to be a really classy event for ALS, where all monies are going to ALS,” begins Grahn. “It’s crossing over to all the soaps, so we have big players from all the soaps coming.” That high-wattage list includes a wide swath of her GH co-stars, such as Maurice Benard (Sonny), Jane Elliot (Tracy), Genie Francis (Laura), Gregory Harrison (Gregory), Rebecca Herbst (Elizabeth), Rena Sofer (Lois) and Maura West (Ava), among many others, who will be joined by B&B’s Thorsten Kaye (Ridge) and Scott Clifton (Liam), DAYS’s Stephen Nichols (Steve), and Y&R’s Eileen Davidson (Ashley), Melissa Claire Egan (Chelsea), Christian J. LeBlanc (Michael), Jason Thompson (Billy).
While ALS factors into Grahn’s current on-air life as Alexis, whose friend and colleague, Gregory, is battling the disease, the cause is actually close to Grahn’s heart for a different reason. “I was actually doing Zoom events during Covid and I met this woman that I just fell in love with, Michelle Strojny. At the time, Michelle had been living with ALS for four years. Now, it’s five years. She is a mom of a teenage son, she has the most wonderful husband, and she has been dealing with this [disease] for quite a while. And obviously, there isn’t a cure yet. It’s not survivable yet. But as she says, it’s not incurable. Nothing is; it’s underfunded. But anyway, I just really dug this woman. She is so grounded and filled with grace, and she spends all of her time working to raise money for the cause. We did a fundraiser for her last year and then I thought, ‘You know what? The soaps don’t ever get together to do something for charity.’ Collectively, we have this amazing community and we don’t collectively use it for a good cause, and I think it’s such an easy thing for us to do and we could potentially really make a difference. I thought, ‘We should gather together, have a fun day and night, and raise money!’ It’s called Daytime Unites, and it’s my hope that we do it again next year for another meaningful, underfunded cause.”
The event will feature not only opportunities to mix and mingle with the stars, “a really fun panel with the actors with some games and autographs, but a concert, as well,” the actress reports. “It should be a really fun event. It starts at one and will probably go until about nine or 10 at night. We need to sell lots of tickets and every penny is a tax deduction and will go to ALS,” she stresses.
For information on the event, including a full roster of stars scheduled to participate, click here. For tickets, click here.
