In 1998, Katie Couric lost her husband, Jay Monahan, criminal defense attorney and television legal commentator, to colon cancer. Monahan was 41 at the time of colon cancer diagnosis, and both Katie and Jay struggled to find treatment options. After her husband's death eight months later, Couric wanted to create a clinic the two would have appreciated during Monahan's battle with cancer. In 2004, The Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health, named in his honor, opened its doors as a clinic of integrated care, focusing on prevention, screening, treatment, support, research, and education for individuals who have or are at risk for developing gastrointestinal cancers.

"Clearly this is precisely the kind of center we wish had existed when Jay was diagnosed," Couric says. "It was very difficult to decipher the different medical jargon about treatment plans. It was a very lonely and isolating experience and very harrowing to go from one specialist to another. Having this comprehensive center full of compassionate caregivers all under one roof would have been a wonderful place for us to go. The opening was a bittersweet occasion, but the center is going to be incredibly helpful to thousands of families and what can be better than that?"

Last night, to raise funds for both Katie Couric's Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance and the Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health, celebrities from film, television and recording donated their time and talent for Hollywood Meets Motown at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Helping to raise funds for the foundations were: Ashford & Simpson, The Bacon Brothers, Tiki Barber, Tony Bennett, Big & Rich, Chris Botti, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, LL Cool J, Elvis Costello, Rosario Dawson, Robert De Niro, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Whoopi Goldberg, Chaka Khan, Greg Kinnear, John Legend, Martina McBride, Michael McDonald, Idina Menzel, Smokey Robinson, Jordan Rudess, James Taylor, Steve Tyrell, and Vanessa Williams.

With all the fun a gala evening of good music can be, I feel certain it will always be bittersweet moments for Couric, who now works with so much dedication to easing the struggles cancer patients must endure, and ultimately, preventing others from losing the love of their life to the cruelty of cancer, as she did.