Hey guys, I'm Brandy Chank for Young Hollywood and we're here at the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation's 26th annual A Time for Heroes event talking to some real celebrity heroes.

Is this the first time you've attended the event?

This is I've been here all 26 years.

Oh my god.

So, um, I I haven't made it to every single one, but I've been coming since inception and really proud to be a part of it. It's always such a fun event for such a great reason. And you know, I think just what Elizabeth Glazer has been able to do, what she was able to do, the awareness she was able to bring to this disease, that she took the taboo off of it and made it something people talk about. You know, she was able to do with funding and research and everything else, I think is really helped make strides in the AIDS community and get it to where it is today and I hope that we can keep pushing through with great organizations like this to do good.

Today's theme is a time for heroes. So I wanted to ask you, who's your personal hero?

My personal hero? Gosh, I mean my parents. I feel like it's such like a generic answer, but probably my mom. It's totally my mom. I look up to my dad a lot. Um, he made it all the way from Ivory Coast in in West Africa to Norway, built the foundation for all of his family. But uh you know, built a start for for us and me and my brothers to to grow up and do what we're doing right now. So that's kind of heroic to me. My parents were the best and um, they raised me right, you know, they helped me navigate those tricky waters of being a child star and coming out of that. They really kept my values grounded. Never were overly impressed with the whole acting thing and they they taught me that education, family, and health come first and they meant it. I mean, I remember being a teenager and hearing about Elizabeth Glazer and the work that she was doing, especially um in the mother to child transmission world and the incredible progress she's made in almost eradicating it from this country and making huge steps in the rest of the world. So, I mean, Elizabeth is a personal hero of mine.

What is a hero?

A hero is somebody who is not selfish and who can see the bigger picture and do the right thing even when it's hard. You know, the people that are volunteering at this event or the people who are running it, they're all heroes because, you know, they're not required to do this by any means. They're doing this because of their love and their passion and their desire to make a difference in the world. So, I mean, they're truly heroes. Being a hero is is is having an integrity even when no one looks. I always tell the kids as as well as, you know, be the person that Not to be the person that dad or mom wants you to be, but be the person that you can be proud of uh when you go to sleep at night um and when you wake up in the morning.

How can people make a difference in their community?

Uh, I would recommend finding something you're passionate about. Uh, there are so many great organizations out there. So many great causes. Find something you're passionate about whether it's pediatric AIDS, whether it's cancer, whether it's the environment. Getting involved, helping other people is important for everyone. You know, if you're having a bad day, if you can help somebody else, that lifts your mood and it gives you purpose. And you're helping somebody at the same time. Maybe you love playing video games, right? And you really care about what's going on in the pediatric AIDS world. You can do a video game marathon, right? And have people sponsor you guys and you play all through the night and raise money towards the cause. It doesn't have to go and be doing something uncomfortable or digging ditches. If everybody combined their passion with a cause, the world would start to change incredibly. Just the awareness alone is huge. But, you know, people can get involved. They can go on social media, they can go on pedes. org and find out more information. They can host an event in their community. They can donate for kids' birthday. Like, I know for my son's birthday, I raised uh $540 just because it was my son's birthday party and I didn't want him to have more junk and toys and stuff. He didn't need it. He's a spoiled kid, he didn't need it. So, we donated, we went on this thing called ecowashparties and you pick out an invitation and then you pick a charity. So you can tie it to the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation or any other charity and you can have your your um children's birthday donate, you know, benefit that instead of just collecting more toys for the basement, you know.

What do you believe is more meaningful, small acts of kindness or grand gestures?

All. Just, I I think there's times when it needs to be small and times when it needs to be grand, so whatever anyone can do.

I'm going to go with small because if you ever if you ever have a person in your life that does that where they just do small gestures all the time, it's better than like one big gesture. It's like more meaningful. So.

What's a message that you would want to tell our Young Hollywood viewers about like just being empowered and being independent?

So much of this generation is trying to find a way to fit in and I feel like with people my age, it's hard to understand that kind of the way of fitting in is celebrating the fact that you are different and you shouldn't try to be something that's not yourself because that's how you'll be happiest and that's how you need to embrace yourself.