Aug. 19, 2007 — Daytime television star Victoria Rowell made a cameo appearance over the weekend at the Nana Baby Children's Home on St. Thomas, which offers foster care services to children throughout the territory.
Rowell, who is participating in this year's Beacon Schools Celebrity Golf Classic, is also on island promoting her book "The Women Who Raised Me: A Memoir," which draws on her own experiences growing up in foster care on the mainland.
"It's really inspired by my experience in foster care and being tutored, loved and raised by amazing women," she said. "But it gave me a chance to recall the people who were my mentors and to thank them for what they contributed to my life."
After finishing a book signing at Dockside Bookshop in Havensight Mall, Rowell stopped by the Nana Baby Home, bringing boxes of groceries, storybooks and a few bags of children's clothes. She also spent some time touring the home with co-founder Beulah Wilson and Wilson's daughter Rita Robles.
Rowell said that while on her national book tour, she has made stops at similar facilities.
"Whenever I can participate in education or give back to a community, I do so," she said. "In this case, while I was at Dockside, I asked where the local orphanage or foster care home was, and someone immediately provided me with the information. That often happens while I'm in various places, since people know about my experiences in foster care and about my work with children."
Best known for her role as Drucilla Winters on "The Young and the Restless," Rowell said that she also strived, when writing her book, to send a message to other children who have grown up in foster care.
"I want those children to know that it's not the end of the world that we're from more than two people," she said. "And that we shouldn't base our existence on just two people. The book also shows that we have an opportunity in life to create our own path, and to be of service to other people like us."
After the golf tournament, which was played throughout the weekend at Mahogany Run Golf Course, Rowell said she would be spending some extra time on island to begin writing her second novel. Work is also under way to turn "The Women Who Raised Me "into a film or a television series, she added.
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