"Catwoman" actress Halle Berry and U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., hosted a unique birthday celebration for Berry at a West Virginia Girls Rise Up event at Piedmont Elementary School in Charleston's East End Wednesday morning. Berry, who turned 58 Wednesday, told the girls that she had never had a birthday party before. She blew out a candle on a birthday cake with the help of the 21 fifth-graders at the event. Capito gave Berry, who is diabetic, a sugar-free cake.
The Girls Rise Up event mirrored Capito's past 32 visits to West Virginia elementary schools. The events focus on motivating young women to set goals and work toward improving their education, physical fitness, and self-confidence. Berry and Capito shared that they had faced their own barriers to success. Berry said she was bullied in the fifth grade, while Capito recalled that, as a child, she was afraid to speak up. Berry, an Academy- and Emmy-award-winning actress, told the Piedmont girls that, when she was a child, she thought her acting dreams were "too big." "Nobody came into my classroom to tell me I could be whatever I wanted to be," she said. "Whatever dream you dream is possible. I don’t want you to leave this classroom without remembering that ... if you work hard and you get something, then it's yours. Don't lose sight of that."
Girls set their own goals By the end of the presentation, the girls developed their own goals to work toward their version of success, including seeing a therapist, becoming a researcher and keeping up with daily exercise. Two students who took part in the presentation, Za'riyah Mosley and Dariyon Williams, are now dreaming big. Za'riyah said she wants to be an actress or a doctor. Dariyon wants to be a 911 dispatcher or a cosmetologist. Za'riyah said one of the things she wants to work on is being more comfortable speaking in front of groups of people.
Dariyon has already formed a plan of action to improve her skills with the help of a mentor. "I want a mentor because — in math — I give up easily. If I don't get something, I shut down and just don't do it," explained Dariyon. The girls had another major takeaway from the presentation. "Don't care what people think, because people are going to hate, because that's what makes them feel better about themselves," Dariyon said. Za'riyah added, "That can be a hard thing to ignore." Both fifth-graders were glad to have Berry at their school and appreciated Capito's initiative. "It means a lot to me because I grew up in West Virginia. You don't want to grow up so fast and pay bills," commented Za'riyah. "I have a lot of great memories of West Virginia. I've been to a lot of places. But when I move, I will still have all those memories from when I grew up in West Virginia." Dariyon added, "A lot of people always used to look down on West Virginia. I used to look down on West Virginia ... But if you think about it, there's stuff here. We just don't get to it every time."
Berry's second Charleston stop focused on menopause Afterward, Berry — whose work in health advocacy recently landed her on Time's 100 Most Influential People in Health list — and Capito headed to a roundtable at the downtown Charleston branch of the Kanawha County Public Library to speak on a different topic: menopause. “Menopause is a fact of life for women and something we all deserve to know more about,” Capito said. "Menopause can impact every aspect of a woman’s life — from their career to their relationships. And for too long, it has only been whispered about among our friends and health care providers." Berry said that it was "an easy yes" to accompany Capito around Charleston today to promote these initiatives, noting that, in addition to her days on the beauty pageant circuit in Wheeling, Capito's friendship is one of her ties to West Virginia. "[Capito] was one of the first senators when I came to Washington with my heart on my sleeve with all this passion, wanting to change the world for women...she was one of my first supporters," Berry said. "We are going to change the world together."