Viola Davis addresses RI high school alma mater

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. (AP) — Viola Davis on Thursday addressed graduating seniors at the high school in the struggling Rhode Island city where she grew up, urging them to treasure "hard times and joyous moments" and telling them that the "privilege of a lifetime is being who you are."

The Academy Award nominee addressed Central Falls High School's class of 2012, student actors and members of student government, nearly 30 years after receiving her own diploma there. She was also inducted into the school's Alumni Hall of Fame.

A member of the class of 1983, Davis has continued to support the city of 19,000 just north of Providence, which is being run by a state receiver who filed for bankruptcy on the city's behalf last year.

"Central Falls makes up in heart what it lacks in size," Davis told students. "Make your mark — whatever it is — you have it in you."

Davis donated $1,000 each to the Central Falls library and a Central Falls charter school last year, and in accepting a Screen Actors Guild award in January told students there to "dream big and dream fierce."

Central Falls High School Principal Joshua Laplante this week called Davis a "treasured" graduate and said she has overcome adversity but remembers where she came from with a "genuine sense of pride."

Davis was the Rhode Island favorite for best actress in this year's Academy Awards for her performance as a black maid in "The Help," but she lost out to Meryl Streep.

Streep made $10,000 donations in Davis' name to the same charter school and to the Upward Bound scholarship fund that the actress established with her sister.

Davis graduated in 1988 from Rhode Island College, where she studied theater.

Thursday's address was part of senior activities ahead of the high school's June 8 graduation.

Central Falls, a 1.3-square-mile city about a 15-minute drive north of Providence, found itself the subject of national headlines over its floundering finances and a high school so troubled that all its teachers were fired in one fell swoop in 2010, but eventually rehired.

Source & Image : Yahoo