Photo | Courtesy | Shine Initiative
Actor Sean Astin
October 14, 2020
Actor Sean Astin to speak at Shine Initiative fundraiser
TV and movie fans likely know him as Rudy in the football movie of the same name or as Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the actor behind those and other roles, Sean Astin, has a story to tell about his mother's bipolar disorder and will speak Wednesday night at a fundraiser for the Worcester nonprofit Shine Initiative.
Astin, who has also played roles in Stranger Things and The Goonies, is the son of the late actress Patty Duke, who won Academy and Golden Globe awards for her acting, and had a long-running role in The Patty Duke Show. She became a mental health advocate later in her life, a role Astin has since continued.
“The more she opened up, the more she shared of her pain. It is very instructive for people,” Astin told The Los Angeles Times in 2016 after his mother's death.
The Shine Initiative, a nonprofit founded by Leominster's Fidelity Bank in 2004, works to fight mental health struggles in children and young adults, along with the stigma and discrimination that can come with it. The group's gala will be held online from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. The Shine Initiative will give out awards to a team of students at Hudson High School running an after-school club on mental health and to Dr. Peter Metz, a professor of psychiatry at UMass Medical School in Worcester.
The group's annual fundraiser — held virtually this year because of the coronavirus pandemic — is a major financial boost for the small nonprofit, which works in roughly 50 area middle and high schools as part of its Mindmatters program, which includes classroom presentations, teacher and staff training, and parent and community forums and conferences. The initiative also has an app of the same name that's meant to help youth better understand or seek help for any mental health challenges.
"It's important to fuel the work that we do," Fred Kaelin, the executive director of the Shine Initiative, said of the fundraiser.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments