Kicking off her Girl Scouts Gold Award project, Coral Gables Senior High sophomore Elise Raurell was motivated by a topic she felt deserved greater attention: natural disaster safety. Growing up in South Florida, where hurricane season is a common occurrence for families each year, Raurell recognized how important it is for students to understand how to respond and prepare before an emergency occurs. Her Gold Award Project, Storm Smart, is a service project aiming to equip young students with the knowledge and resources needed to prepare effectively for hurricane season. Through partnerships with middle school National Junior Honor Society chapters across Miami-Dade County, Storm Smart delivers interactive workshops to public schools to educate students on hurricane preparation.
The Girl Scout Gold Award is the highest honor a Girl Scout can achieve, recognizing exceptional leadership and legitimate community impact. To earn the distinction, Girl Scouts must identify an issue, conduct extensive research and implement a sustainable solution capable of creating meaningful change over time. Candidates must also complete prerequisite achievements, such as earning the Silver Award or finishing a Journey program.
Before beginning Storm Smart, Raurell earned her Silver Award in eighth grade for creating a healing garden for human trafficking survivors at Kristi House. Entering her sophomore year, she began developing ideas for her Gold Award project in October 2025, searching for a cause that personally resonated with her values and experiences. After taking extensive time researching issues affecting South Florida communities, she opted for her project to focus on hurricane preparedness and began developing educational modules aimed at middle school students.
“For my Silver Award, I focused more on identifying a community issue that needed attention, but with my Gold Award I wanted the process to feel more personal because it is the highest and final award project I will complete as a Girl Scout. Since this award represents so much of my journey over the past 10 years, I wanted to choose something that connected not only to my community but also to my own experiences and the issues I genuinely care about,” sophomore Raurell said.
For Raurell, a Girl Scout of more than 10 years at Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida, the project became an opportunity to combine her passion for community service with her own personal experience. Witnessing the fear and uncertainty hurricanes can bring to families at a young age made hurricane preparation an issue she grew to care deeply about over time.
“In 2017, I vividly remember witnessing the widespread devastation caused by Hurricane Irma across Florida while watching the news as a child. Seeing how many families were unprepared for a storm of that magnitude made me realize how important hurricane preparedness truly is, which ultimately inspired me to create Storm Smart as my Girl Scouts Gold Award project this year,” sophomore Raurell said.
Following its approval from her project manager in February, Storm Smart officially launched in April and began to grow beyond what Raurell expected. Raurell recruited a group of students at her school who shared her interest in hurricane preparedness, willingly volunteering to help her initiative spread across the community. The project soon established a student board at Gables, which holds responsibility for coordinating educational modules and emailing activity coordinators at local middle schools to arrange training sessions through their NJHS clubs.
The student board consists of Raurell serving as Storm Smart’s Founder, accompanied by Director of Media Nathaniel Woods and Outreach Directors Jose Rojas and Sofia Caputo. Each of them contributes to Storm Smart’s operations behind the scenes, scheduling training workshops and collaborating with the NJHS clubs at other middle schools such as Cypress-Bay K-8 and Coral Gables Preparatory Academy.
“I have known Elise since elementary school, so seeing her turn something she’s grown very passionate about into a meaningful project that serves our Floridian community made me grow more interested in learning about hurricane prevention, something that is not taught well enough in schools. Despite living in Florida, hurricanes are something we experience constantly, and being a part of Elise’s project really opened my eyes to how important it is for students to adopt these skills before an emergency actually happens,” sophomore Rojas said.
During each school visit, Storm Smart members lead interactive presentations focused on teaching students the essential steps of storm safety in a way that is understandable and easy to digest for younger audiences. Presentations cover topics such as assembling emergency supply kits, creating evacuation plans and identifying reliable weather resources during storm season.
To help expand storm safety education beyond her own presentations, Raurell also developed modules for NJHS students to lead independently at their own schools. Each module includes presentation guides and hurricane safety activities that allow NJHS members to teach their peers. By creating modules, students could continue using on their own, Raurell wanted to make Storm Smart a project capable of continuing to spread awareness about hurricane preparedness even beyond her own involvement.
“The first school we visited for a Storm Smart presentation was actually my former middle school, Coral Gables Preparatory Academy, which made the experience feel very full circle for me. Being able to return to a place where I once attended as a student and now teach current students something that I’m passionate about showed me how much the project had grown beyond my original expectations and made me realize the impact Storm Smart was beginning to have within the community,” sophomore Raurell said.
As Storm Smart continues to develop, interest in the cause grew, allowing Raurell to build the project through collaborations with Cavalier clubs. With her cause being spread among Gables’ student body, it opened doors for Storm Smart to collaborate with Gables’ environmental club, Green Gables and the National Honor Society.
In recognition of Earth Week, Storm Smart partnered with Green Gables to create an educational video connecting hurricane preparedness with environmental protection. The video, up on Storm Smart’s official website, highlighted how active preparation during storm season can also contribute to environmental sustainability efforts.
Storm Smart also collaborated with NHS at Coral Gables Senior High to design and distribute wallet-sized hurricane safety cards. The cards provide quick steps for preparing before a storm and staying safe during emergencies, allowing students to carry essential information with them throughout hurricane season.
From classroom to classroom, Storm Smart has grown into a true act of community service that accessibly reaches students across the Miami community, turning hurricane preparedness into a concept they don’t just hear about, but actually learn and put into practice. Beginning next year, Raurell anticipates officially receiving the Girl Scouts Gold Award for her service and continuing to collaborate with other middle schools such as South Miami Middle. Step by step, she hopes each presentation continues to build a stronger sense of awareness and confidence as students learn how to face hurricane season prepared, not afraid.
