Stepping Stone, a San Diego-based nonprofit alcohol and drug recovery agency, will host its annual Laughing Out Loud charity event on Saturday, Sept. 8, at Marston Pointe Estate in Hillcrest. Organizers hope to raise $100,000, or $32,000 more than they raised last year in order to compensate for funding cuts.

This year’s event is especially important, said Jim Ginelli, Stepping Stone’s chief of Development and Public Relations, because state and federal funding cuts have reduced Stepping Stone’s resources. “We are being cut monthly if you will….You know, the governor and what he’s up against with all the cuts and restrictions that [are] taking place. And that has been happening for a long time. That’s why it’s really crucial.”

This year’s event will feature Leslie Jordan, (known by many as Karen’s pretentious rival on “Will and Grace”); Alison Arngrim, who dubs her stand-up Confessions of a Prairie Bitch a “deconstruction” of Nellie Olson, the character she played on “Little House on the Prairie;” Judy Tenuta (a.k.a. the “Love Goddess”) and musical guests Abigails Attic and The Players, featuring Ria Carey.

The charity, previously known as Living Out Loud, changed its name when Stepping Stone’s board decided to focus more on comedians. City commissioner Nicole Murray Ramirez initially proposed the idea, Ginelli says.

According to Ginelli, Stepping Stone serves approximately 300 people per year, of which 65 to 75 percent are GLBT. The organization claims a success rate of between 50 and 60 percent, far exceeding the national average of 20 to 23 percent, among its alcohol- and drug-addicted clients.

Ginelli himself is one of the organization’s success stories. Several years ago, after he started using alcohol as a way to deal with his sexual orientation, his drinking became so bad that he lost his job. Unemployed and in dire need of help, Ginelli contacted Stepping Stone. “[Stepping Stone allowed me to] actually be safe and to talk about my unresolved issues and to do my internal work. Thank god there was a place that this community had built for somebody like me,” he said.

Stepping Stone hopes to raise $100,000 this year – $32,000 more than last year’s event, Ginelli said. “Basically that $68,000 was exactly what we needed to fill all the gaps [in funding last year].”

The funds go “into a pool of unrestricted funds and then the [money pays for] operating costs that are not covered by contracts and other funding sources,” Ginelli said.

Leslie Jordan, who has been Stepping Stone’s national spokesperson since 2006, performed at last year’s Living Out Loud. Stepping Stone, after reviewing community feedback, invited him to return for this year’s event. “I kind of kept my pulse on the community and the feedback I was getting – you know, that he had won an Emmy, and people would really like to see him again. So we invited him back and he accepted.”

Stepping Stone also wanted to bring back Kathy Griffin, who was the headline act for Living Out Loud in 2004, but was not able to, due to cost and timing. “We tried to get Kathy Griffin again. We had her on the [U.S.S.] Midway; she was, like, $3,500 for us, and that’s when she was just rising, and now we wanted her back but she was now $60,000. So we were trying to work a deal and trying to get the money, and it just wasn’t working and then she went on vacation. Someone suggested we do Alison Arngrim and Judy Tenuta and so we did that.”

Stepping Stone expects about 600 people to attend this year’s event, a hundred more than last year, said Ginelli, who has been promoting the event on TV. “I’ve already been on TV like five times now. We were on this morning and we have another five [appearances] scheduled. Actually Alison will be on TV, NBC tomorrow morning, here at downtown.”

Arngrim signed on for the cause.

“It’s a really good cause and a good party, and I have a lot of fans in San Diego who have been dying for me to come down and do a show there, and then I got a call that they were going to have this big show for Stepping Stone, and I said, ‘Oh this sounds fabulous,’” said Arngrim.

Stepping Stone, founded in 1976, provides both residential and non-residential drug and alcohol recovery programs that include 12 Step meetings, workshops, educational classes and community referrals. Stepping Stone recently launched a public education campaign to inform the local GLBT community about the risks of methamphetamine use and to give users access to information about recovery programs.