Fourth and fifth grade girls learning what it takes to be an amazing leader during a West Virginia Girls Rise Up program event Tuesday.
U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito and America250 Chair and previous 43rd U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios joined students at Ruthlawn Elementary School in South Charleston to empower West Virginia girls to have a voice and be more confident in themselves.
The event, which was created in 2015 by Capito, focuses on the importance of education, wellness, and self-confidence.
Capito said this was her 36th visit to a school in the state doing the rise up event.
She says that she does this because she wants to inspire the next generation of leaders.
“I want to see the next leadership of the state of this state, or this community or this country come from these young women in West Virginia,” Capito said. “And I think a lot of times young girls don’t aspire to things that they don’t see, so that’s why I think it’s important to come personally to see somebody like Rosie who’s going to lead our whole nation celebration of 250, that’s a huge job.”
She started out with education, asking the girls what their favorite subject was while they were in school. It ranged from reading, spelling to math and science. She also asked the girls what they didn’t like to do in school. Answers ranged from not wanting to speak/read in front of the group to not wanting to speak to new people.
Wellness Capito asked the girls what they do to stay healthy; answers ranged from exercise to eating foods that are healthy for you and sleep. Self-confidence was what it meant to them by not caring what others think of you.
4th grader Brooklyn Milan said that she learned that no matter what you have in life, you can always follow your dreams.
“I learned that even what you have, you can always still follow your dreams, even if you don’t have a lot of money, you can still do what you want to do and follow your dreams,” Milan said.
While she doesn’t have a specific career in mind that she wants to do, Milan said that what Capito and Rios does for a career interesting.
5th grader Ashlynn Vandale agreed with Milan, that she learned to follow her dreams but also have some self-confidence in herself.
“Taught us to actually follow our dreams, never give up and actually be proud of ourselves, to keep your self-respect and keep confidence boosting,” Vandale said.
At the end of her presentation, Capito asked the girls to focus one of the three areas and put down a goal on how they were going to achieve them. Vandale said she wanted to focus more on presenting in her classes and Milan said she wanted to get better at researching. Other answers ranged from reading more books, to playing more soccer, to stop caring what other people think of them.
Rios said that it was great seeing the girls meet someone who is an amazing leader for our country and state.
“To see what it means to have these young girls meet with someone like her (Capito) that represents West Virginia so well,” she said. “For me this isn’t a memory, this is a feeling so for them to be able to hear her experience of what it means to be a national leader, they’re going to remember this for the rest of their lives, and they’re going to feel this for the rest of their lives, hopefully to inspire the next generation of leadership.”