benefit luncheon

15th annual benefit luncheon with Victoria Rowell

Register here!

Interested in sponsoring the luncheon? Click here!

October 9, 2008
11:30 am–1:15 pm (check-in begins at 11:30 am, program begins at noon)
Hilton Vancouver Washington

Children in foster care face many challenges. But mentors, caring foster parents, staff members in nonprofit and government agencies, and volunteers such as our own Court Appointed Special Advocates can help them succeed in life. It is these special people about whom Victoria Rowell, our 2008 Benefit Luncheon keynote speaker, writes in her memoir, “The Women Who Raised Me.”

An actress and ballet dancer who has appeared on “The Young and the Restless” and in numerous other TV shows and movies, Rowell was a ward of the state from the instant of her birth. She says that she has many mothers—her birth mother and others, including a long-term foster mother, ballet teachers, a social worker and the mothers of several friends.

“The Women Who Raised Me” won the Outstanding Debut Author award from the NAACP. Victoria has also won eleven NAACP Image Awards, the United Nations Association Award, the National Angel in Adoption award from the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute and honorary degrees from the University of Southern Maine and Wheelock College.

In 1990, Victoria founded The Rowell Foster Children’s Positive Plan, which introduces children in foster care to fine arts and athletics and helps them with job placement. She is also the national spokesperson for Casey Family Services, a program of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and supports many other nonprofit organizations.

Victoria will inspire us all with her story about the resilience of children and the caring and generosity of adults.

For more information or to sponsor the luncheon, please call 360-906-4301 or e-mail kliles@ywcaclarkcounty.org. To register, click here.