Alex Apatoff is the Executive Editor of PEOPLE Digital. She has worked on the style and beauty team and in a cross-departmental role.
For the ninth year, Stand Up to Cancer (also known as SU2C) will be airing its star-studded, performance-packed show dedicated to raising money for cancer research across all four major U.S. broadcast networks as well as streaming services, iHeartRadio and more (including at the YouTube above) -- on Friday, August 15 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT and 7:00 p.m. CT.
Hosted by Sheryl Crow, herself a breast cancer survivor, and joined by Katie Couric, one of the organization's cofounders and a breast cancer survivor, the evening will also feature appearances from celebrities including Kevin Bacon, Jamie Foxx, Tim McGraw, Zoe Saldaña, Reese Witherspoon and Keith Urban.
And fittingly for the event's first time filming in Nashville, the performer line up is a who's who of country music heavy hitters, including Jelly Roll, the Brothers Osborne, Jon Pardi and Dan + Shay. They'll be joined by other superstar musicians including the Jonas Brothers, CeCe Winans and Noah Cyrus.
"All cancer scientists need support right now," Couric told PEOPLE ahead of the show's taping on August 9. "As you probably know, cancer funding has been significantly cut ... We can't afford to stop it in its tracks. Every minute in this country, a person dies of cancer. One out of two men will get diagnosed in their lifetime, one out of three women. And we need better treatments, better therapies, better ways to manage this disease, and we're at a critically important time where AI and technology can help with that. So now is not the time to stop all the gains we've made."
Couric, who became a national advocate for early detection and cancer research after the death of her husband Jay in 1998 from colon cancer -- and who herself received a cancer diagnosis in 2022 -- expressed her gratitude for the decades of success and star support that SU2C has received.
"All the artists who have come tonight and who have supported us through the years, we are eternally grateful to them," she said. "'Cause they give us a lot of recognition, a lot of star power, and many of them have also been affected by cancer."
One of the night's performers, Gavin DeGraw, lost both parents to cancer and debuted a song about his mother during the broadcast. Ahead of the show, he told PEOPLE, "Music is a great way to get everybody together and show a nice sense of community. We've all had heartbreak and loss and love and all of those things. And we've all suffered, in a lot of ways, very mutually. And I think we're all sharing in the life experience today. I think it's very powerful."
Tune in tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET to see the whole show, and donate at StandUptoCancer.org.