GRAFTON, W.Va. (WV News) — Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., hosted her 31st West Virginia Girls Rise Up event at Anna Jarvis Elementary School in Grafton Tuesday.

Capito, joined by Miss Morgantown Sarah Lojewski, brought her West Virginia Girls Rise Up program to fourth graders at Anna Jarvis to promote female empowerment, education, fitness and self-confidence.

“I started thinking about the things in my life that have really been helpful to me, and I try to relate it to what I felt like when I was in fourth and fifth grade,” Capito said. “Education is the main building block to anything. Physical fitness has always been very important to me — it is mind and body.

“Then the hardest one as you are moving into middle school, particularly for young girls, is keeping your self-confidence up and find where your confidence is.”

As West Virginia’s first female United States senator, Capito has made it a point to inspire the next generation of female leaders.

To that end, she launched her West Virginia Girls Rise Up program in 2015.

“I want to inspire the next generation to be the next leaders in our state,” Capito said. “The reason I started it was because I am the first woman senator ever elected from the state of West Virginia, and I feel like I have a voice that I can tell young girls and college students that we can be the next leaders in the state.”

Lojewski created an initiative called “Level the Playing Field,” with the intention of establishing equal opportunities for all in sports.

Through the initiative, Lojewski focuses on empowering women and girls to dive into the sports world. Whether it is as a fan, a player or those who work behind the scenes of sports, Sarah’s initiative aims to make everyone feel welcome in the industry.

“It is all about creating equality and equal opportunity in sports, and so I do that by going to young girls, getting them involved in sports in any way possible and educating everyone about the lack of equality within sports,” Lojewski said.

“Whenever I was younger and in high school, I didn’t know being able to be involved in sports at an operational level was an option for me,” Lojewski said. “Once I got into college and I saw I had female people to look up to within these organizations of sports, I knew that is something I wanted to do.”

Fourth-grader Summer McCauley was inspired by Lojewski and Capito’s visit.

“It was really cool because I didn’t know she was a female senator. I learned girls can do anything,” she said.

“It was an honor to welcome Sen. Capito and Miss Morgantown Sarah Lojewski to Anna Jarvis Elementary School for the West Virginia Girls Rise Up event today,” said Principal Heather Sinclair. “It was exciting to see how they worked together to inspire these young women to become the next generation of female leaders for West Virginia with the core values that will help them find success. I know their presence made an unforgettable impact on these students.”