It all started with a box of Girl Scout cookies.

When Cherry Valley resident Erin Sanders was 9 years old, she spent one day going door to door at her grandmother's apartment building in Encino selling cookies.

At one of the apartments, Erin rattled off an impressive spiel of cookie names and descriptions. The resident happened
to have a friend with a talent agency and he gave Erin and her mother a business card.

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Special to The Press-Enterprise

Cherry Valley resident Erin Sanders plays the part of Eden on CBS's "The Young and the Restless."

Erin's acting career began that day.

At 17, she has slipped into a number of different personas.

She was Quinn, the funky friend of Zoey on the Nickelodeon series "Zoey 101." She made television appearances
on "8 Simple Rules," "Judging Amy," "Carnivale," "American Dreams" and "Strong Medicine."

And, most recently she has become Eden Baldwin, the surprise half sister of Michael Baldwin on CBS's "The Young
and the Restless."

"Working on 'The Young and the Restless' is very different from 'Zoey,'" Erin said. "It moves really, really quickly.
Every scene takes about 15 minutes, and that includes set up.

"It's also a lot heavier. On 'Zoey,' everything was light and fluffy. But, it's still a lot of fun, and everyone is so nice."

Erin's character, Eden, comes from a shady past. She is the half sister of Michael Baldwin. Their father, River, abandoned him and his mother when Michael was a baby. Michael had just given up searching for him when they randomly met.

It turned out River had been a fugitive for 40 years, wanted for murder. The police threw him in jail, and then Eden
went to live with Michael, because she was still a minor.

"Her whole life she's been taught to trust no one," Erin said. "So, it's really difficult for her to live in this household
and trust them."

Although Erin is enjoying her current work, she does miss the friends she made working on "Zoey," and she misses
her character, Quinn.

"After being one character for four years, it's sad not doing that anymore," she said. "It became a whole persona.
We were like family," Erin said of her "Zoey 101" co-workers. "But we still see each other as much as we can.

"And it's nice to begin new projects."

Erin's mom, Kathy, has been involved in all her projects.

Because she works in Los Angeles anyway, she and Erin stay in the city during the week and head home to
Cherry Valley for the weekends.

"I don't know if we could have done it if we had to drive back and forth for every audition," Kathy said. "And,
until recently, a parent or guardian had to be on set with her at all times."

If she were on a Disney or Nickelodeon set, she would still require a guardian through age 18, she said. "But most
other shows only require it until age 16, so it's not needed anymore.

"It's really a frenzied, hectic kind of life, but it can be really fun," Kathy said. "It's exciting and creative ... it's put us
in a whole different world we would never have been a part of.

"But, it's a lot of work too," she added.

"When she was on the 'Zoey' set, she had a mandated three hours of school each day," Kathy said. "She has had
pretty much no social life. That's just the way it is."

Erin recently acquired her high school diploma, but is still completing coursework.

It's important to her that she gets it all done even though she already passed the test for her diploma, Kathy said. She finishes what she starts.

She's still a Girl Scout, too.

Reach Jennifer Dean at 951-368-9336 or jdean@PE.com