By Steve Helling

05/15/2013 at 04:20 PM EDT

Two months after losing her beloved fox terrier in an apartment fire, Twilight‘s Ashley Greene has found a surefire way to move forward with her loss: shifting her focus to helping others.

“Obviously, I’ve had a rough few months, but I’m doing okay,” she tells PEOPLE. “I’m exploring new opportunities, and I try to participate in charity events as much as possible.”

“It’s very important to me to focus on others, not just myself. You look at children with cancer and you think, ‘Wow, it really puts my own problems into perspective.’ Not to say that what we all go through isn’t important, but there are people who have much greater problems that they deal with every day.”

Greene caught up with PEOPLE backstage at the Runway to Hope Spring Fashion Soiree on Saturday.

The event, founded by CNN analyst Mark NeJame and his wife Josie, raised more than $700,000 for pediatric cancer research. Greene and Olympic medalist Gabby Douglas emceed a fashion show and chatted with the runway models – all pediatric cancer patients.

“The numbers are just staggering. More than 12,000 children are diagnosed with cancer every year,” says the actress. “I definitely wanted to lend my name to something like this.”

Next up for Greene: a role in the upcoming drama CBGB. One thing you won’t see? The actress playing a vampire anytime soon. “If I’ve been getting vampire offers, my management hasn’t been sending them to me,” she says with a laugh. “We agreed that, unless a vampire role is spectacular, I just can’t do it.”

As for her Twilight costars, Greene says they mainly bump into each other on red carpets. “I still try to keep up with everyone, but we don’t see each other as much as we’d like to. And then there’s always Skype! I chatted with Kellan Lutz the other day and he was in Bulgaria!”