BY MELISSA RUGGIERI

On their charming Netflix series "Grace and Frankie," Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin play longtime acquaintances thrust into a shared life experience that forces them to embrace each other's quirks.

On Thursday night, the two longtime real-life friends appeared at Flourish event center in Buckhead for the annual “Empower” party and fundraiser for Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential, which Fonda founded 21 years ago.

Zipping in from Colorado for a few hours, where she’s filming the Netflix movie “Our Souls at Night” with Robert Redford, the always-elegant Fonda told the several hundred well-heeled attendees, “It’s good to be back in Atlanta – this was my home for 20 years.”

A primary focus of GCAPP is sex education among young people, and Fonda reported progress in the decrease in teen births around the country.

“So many young people don’t know what a healthy relationship is supposed to look and feel like,” she said from the stage.

As a crowd that included CeeLo Green dined on pot roast and chicken, a spirited auction unfolded.

High-end packages such as five days at Ted Turner’s Vermejo Park Ranch sold for $50,000, while lunch for four with Fonda on the set of “Grace and Frankie” sold twice for $36,000 a pop (the ever-game Tomlin chimed in that the winner could also sleep in her trailer). Green also served an impromptu offering – a recording party with the soul man himself (two packages at $18,000 quickly disappeared).

The event raised $1.1 million for GCAPP.

Following the auction, Fonda and Tomlin sat for a fun, frank chat moderated by CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux.

On Nov. 1, GCAPP will launch the Power Society, a group of community-minded individuals committed to the well-being of young people. Through membership, they will provide GCAPP with year-round financial support to advance work in teen pregnancy prevention, relationships and nutrition.

For more information, check out www.gcapp.org, and take a listen to Fonda and Tomlin below.

About the Author

Keep Reading

Collect candy, play carnival games for prizes and do more not-so-scary stuff at Boo at the Zoo at Zoo Atlanta on Saturday and Sunday. (Courtesy of Zoo Atlanta)

Credit: Photo courtesy of Zoo Atlanta

Featured

Members of the conversion crew take a break as the main scoreboard is lowered to the floor to be worked on as the arena gets ready for the next concert at State Farm Arena, Thursday, October 2, 2025, in Atlanta. The crew was working on creating a stage for the Friday, Oct. 3 Maxwell concert. (Jason Getz/AJC)

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com