Eva Longoria Parker, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Pamela Anderson and singer Katy Perry were among the celebrities who attended the Life Ball in Vienna on May 16, The Associated Press reports. The annual charity event—now in its 17th year—raises funds for programs benefiting people affected by HIV/AIDS worldwide.

Representing the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), Longoria Parker (Desperate Housewives) told the thousands in attendance that only a small number of children in the hardest-hit regions in Asia have access to lifesaving antiretroviral medication.

“There’s a terrible shortage of doctors and other health care workers who are trained to provide the proper treatment and care for those children,” she said.

In a brief speech, Clinton urged attendees to remember less fortunate people around the world despite the global economic downturn. “We know we live in an interdependent world where we cannot separate our fates from those a long way away,” said Clinton, who founded the treatment-focused Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative in 2002. “Tonight, you are not just enjoying an extraordinary extravaganza, you are helping children and women and men to live in far away places who have no money, no medicine, no hope.”