Eagle-eyed Hallmark followers possible felt a bit of lump of their throats watching the community’s newest film, Falling Together, which premiered on World Alzheimer’s Day on Saturday, Sept. 21.
Star and govt producer Ashley Williams honored her mom, Linda, who died in 2016 after battling the illness for greater than a decade, with the movie, together with numerous winks to her character, in addition to the naming of the character who labored for Alzheimer’s Association Linda Payne.
However one scene featured Easter eggs celebrating a number of different Hallmark favorites’ dad and mom.
Within the scene, Williams’ character, Natalie, was photographs in Linda’s workplace, and the digital camera panned slowly previous a photograph of Williams’ mother — in addition to photographs of Nikki DeLoach‘s father, David DeLoach, who died three years in the past from a uncommon and aggressive type of dementia known as Decide’s Illness, and Andrew Walker‘s mom, Joyce Francis Crossley Walker, who died final yr after an extended journey with Alzheimer’s.
“It was actually vital to us to place these little treasures in, and it was so cool we had this chance,” Williams tells PEOPLE. “I knew that we would wish photographs on the wall, as a result of that is what the Alzheimer’s Affiliation does, and so I texted Nikki and Andrew and mentioned, ‘Any probability you may ship me some footage? I wish to embrace footage of your loved ones, of your dad and of your mother on the wall of the Alzheimer’s workplace location.'”
Not surprisingly, her longtime friends had been fast to reply.
“They mentioned, “‘Oh, that’d be wonderful,’ and so they began sending me footage,” Williams recollects. “It is one thing that not all people’s going to note, however it simply made the scene all of the extra significant for me.”
She added, “This film is so near my coronary heart. It simply feels prefer it’s this little pocket of my coronary heart. It means a lot to me.”
Whereas Williams subsequent stars in Jingle Bell Run, a Christmas film alongside Walker, she and DeLoach are working carefully collectively on the upcoming fundraiser, Dance Occasion to Finish ALZ, which is able to happen in Los Angeles on Oct. 27. (Click here for tickets and extra info.) The social gathering helps to fund the Alzheimer’s Affiliation’s Analysis Grant Program.
“The cash simply goes on to scientists who’re engaged on numerous research,” Williams notes. “Nikki and I get to take a seat down yearly and resolve the place the cash goes. They discuss us by way of completely different research that they wish to do, after which we select which of them to assist and the way a lot cash to present them. Attending to work with the Alzheimer’s Analysis Grant Program and seeing the place the cash goes makes me really feel like each greenback actually counts, which it does at all times, however you get to see it.”
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Falling Collectively, additionally starring Paul Campbell, airs once more on Hallmark Channel on Sunday, Sept. 22 at 6 p.m. ET/PT. Jingle Bell Run debuts on Nov. 16 on Hallmark Channel.