Ep 160 From Passion to Action: How Annie Advocated for Pet Safety in South Florida

Annie discusses her impactful Girl Scout Gold Award project, "South Florida Pet Safety." She highlights the alarming statistic that up to 30% of animal deaths are preventable and shares her mission to educate pet owners in her transient community about unique local dangers. Annie details her creation of a pet safety book tailored specifically for South Florida, covering crucial topics such as heat dangers, wildlife hazards, poisonous plants, and preparedness for natural disasters like hurricanes. She also shares insights on how she funded the project through community sponsorships, emphasizing the importance of spreading awareness and knowledge to keep pets safe. Tune in to learn more about Annie's inspiring work and the vital lesson of pet safety in a unique environment.

More about Annie:

Anneliese Hsiao has been “making the world a better place” as a Girl Scout since age 5. She’s currently a high school senior on scholarship in the pre-medical and science research programs at American Heritage School in Plantation, Florida, where she has competed at regional, state, and international events with Science Olympiad, FJAS, and HOSA, achieving “national finalist” status in both science fair and HOSA Veterinary Medicine events. In addition to volunteering in the Humane Society of Broward County’s surgical clinic, Anneliese’s passion to become a veterinarian led her to found a Pre-Veterinary Club at her school. Other leadership positions have included President of her Girl Scout troop, Miracle Network Dance Marathon Club, NJHS, and NEHS. Anneliese holds seven consecutive Gold President’s Volunteer Service Awards for her community service efforts (1000+ hours). In her free time, she studies dance, violin, and piano, for which she has won multiple awards at the state level. Anneliese’s Girl Scout Gold Award project, which advocates for pet safety in South Florida, has led to her being named Scout of the Year for South Florida and the recipient of GSSEF’s “Service From the Heart” scholarship in 2025, and was also featured on local tv news.

https://www.instagram.com/petsafety.southfl/profilecard/?igsh=MWY5NnFsdXQ0cGpjYg%3D%3D

Episode Transcript

The Hearts of Gold Podcast is brought to you by the Grow and Share Network, produced by off the Walter Media. Sheryl (00:00):
Welcome to Hearts of Gold. Today we have Annie with us. Hi Annie. Annie

(01:00):
and a big part of that campaign was writing a pet safety book and what makes this project. Unique and not generic. 'cause I'm sure you can find many resources of how to keep your pet safe online, is that I made it very specific to my area. So South Florida is a very transient community. There's a lot of people coming down here for vacation or just people coming for retirement or just living here for a few years. And that makes it very dangerous for their pets because wehave so many unique dangers like alligators or extreme heat that people don't know about. So I created this pet safety book, and it has four main sections. So I have like heat dangers, wildlife plants, and then natural disasters where I talked about things like hurricanes and drownings. So this. Book. I was able to raise money for printing by doing sponsorships. So I reached out to my family and my friends in the community and I did this thing where it was like, oh, if you

(02:00):
donate $25 that sponsors the printing of 10 books and you get a book for free. So that was a way that I. Overcame that obstacle of raising enough money to actually get the physical books. And I ended up being able to print 500 copies, which was five times the amount I originally intended. So that was amazing. And I got to distribute them at the Humane Society and so they went out with like each adoption. And once those copies ran out, they passed out like QR codesand those go in like the packet. That are distributed to each adoption, and that just leads to the digital book of free PDFs of my pet safety book. Another thing that I did was I created a pre-vet club at my school. So another issue that I wanted to address with my project, not only pet safety, but also the national shortage of veterinarians that we have. And this is because there's so little vet schools, there's only 32 in the entire nation compared to almost

(03:00):
200 just human medicine schools. So that's a big issue, especially 'cause the number of pets are rising. Because of COVID, a lot of people got pets and there's just the same amount of veterinarians. So it's, it's a big toll and I wanted to create this club to encourage people to explore that opportunity and that vocation. And that's been going really well. We recruit guest speakers, so I had like the vet that I work at in the Humane SocietyClinic, and she came in and she talked to my club members about. What she does and how she became a vet and like her schooling. And then we also do community service, so that's really awesome. We do like dog washes and we raise money for, we raise money for like hurricane relief for animals. And that was really nice as well. And then I had a lot of different aspects to my campaign, which honestly like I was not expecting to go this. Far

(04:00):
out. But I also did educational workshops, so I like reached out to my Girl Scout community and I was really surprised by the amount of people who were like willing to have me come speak to them and their girls about pet safety. I also taught some like animal badges, so like the Junior Animal Helper badge and like the Brownie Pets badge. And then I incorporated my book. Into those workshops. So that was really cool. And I also taught some at my lower school. So I workedwith like the lower school principal and they had me come into. The environmental education classes and teach them about pet safety. So that was super fun, getting to work with the little kids. And then one of the last things that I did was create my Instagram account. So that's just like a pet safety tip, like reminder thing, like for people to just follow. And then it shows up on my story like, oh, for 4th of July, here's some firework safety for your. Pets and like

(05:00):
things like that. So that's been super fun to keep up as well. The last thing was getting community partners, so. Since I have a digital book, it's really easy to for me to go out and ask. For example, like PET wants, like their managers, like, Hey, can I put up a flyer of my digital book? And then people can download that for free. And it's just in an area, easily accessible. So also like pet friendly hotels, like I did it there as well, and that's a really cool waythat people can ask sex. Access to my projects. Sheryl: For those who may not know, the average project is about 80 hours. How many hours did you put in? Annie: I think it was near 200 hours. Sheryl: For others that may be considering the gold Award when they listened to you and all the things that you did, what inspired your project to start with? And then you talked a little bit about the little pieces that inspired those different activities that you added on, but. Why

did you really feel like all of those pieces were necessary for your project? Annie (06:00):
That's a good question. So I actually really want to become a veterinarian if you couldn't guess. I really love animals. I really love science, so I want, like, my school's prem me track and I really hope that I can become one in the future. So I'm really passionate about like advocating for animals 'cause they don't have a voice. And yeah, it's just a big issue down here. And I was also inspired by like, once I knew that I wanted to become a vet, I kind of like focused some of my activities on it. So like my science for projects, for example, in middle school I did one about like hot cars. It wasn't for animals, but I did like hand sanitizer and hot cars. But that really opened me up to like then putting hot cars in my pet safety book and like realizing the. Dangers of that. And then my freshman year science for a

project was about BFO toads. So if you don't know, bfo toads are like extremely poisonous toads that we have in South Florida and like the lower states. And they're an invasive species and they're really deadly too, especially little dogs. So I did research on that, which inspired me to then include it into my pet safety book, and it's like about how to prevent it and how to treat. So, yeah, those are some things that inspired my projects. Sheryl (07:00):
Super interesting. It's always very clear when a Girl Scout has picked a project that's super meaningful to themselves because it, they just flourish while they're doing the project. How do you feel that this project is gonna impact you in your future, especially since you wanna go to vet school? Annie

(08:00):
multiple vets, like through my club, through the guest speakers I've met. Like for example, Dr. Ellos, he came to my pre-vet club to talk to my members and he's like a super renowned dental veterinarian. So that was really cool getting to make that connection. And then actually through this project, my expert advisor. Ms. Darlene Feldman, she works as the director of Education at the Humane Society of Broward County. And I knew her 'cause I had volunteered there since like 2020. And she knew me and she helpedme with this project. And she actually helped me make a connection so that I could get a position. And the surgical clinic. So I get to work in the surgical clinic now, and that was supposed to be for someone who's like 18 years or older. But because they knew me, like through this project, I was able to get that position and that's been so rewarding. I get to watch their surgeries, I get to like wrap the surgical pacs. It's a really cool experience for me. And just like, not even as a vet, just like as a

person, I feel like I'm really grown. Just because like all the leadership, it took through each step of this journey, like the workshops, writing the book, working with all those different people to, to create the book. And like, it's just really taught me about like, collaboration. And I don't, I feel like I've really grown as a person through this. 'cause it was a long process. It was like three, four years that I spent on this. And yeah, it was really rewarding. Sheryl (09:00):
Can you talk a little bit more about how you made some of those connections and contacts with people that you otherwise wouldn't have made to help other Girl Scouts? Think about how when they're working on their projects. They can talk with different people or how they can make those connections to get to the people that they'd really, really like to have part of their project. Annie

(10:00):
supportive of girls Scale trying to get their gold award and they were the ones, some of them sponsored the printing of my book. A lot of them were like, oh, like my brownies would love to have a pet's badge taught. And it was, they were just really supportive. So that was a great way for me to get support in those connections. And so many of those people have other connections that they were so willing to offer. And that was really nice about the Girl Scout community. And then I was also lucky because I chose to do somethingrelated to what I was already involved in. So like I had those connections from the Humane Society that were so helpful and I had those connections from the other vets. So definitely looking into something you're already like surrounded by. That was extremely helpful to me throughout the process. Sheryl: What was the book writing process like for you? Annie: That was something that I could do on my own time. So it was very like self-disciplined. I did it over a summer and I said I was gonna get it done that summer and I just drafted

(11:00):
it. And then I actually had Dr. Rogers who works at the Humane Society. She reviewed it and she gave me tips on like what to add. And yeah, I actually reached out to a graphic designer and she helped me design my book, which was really helpful. And I also reached out to publisher, who happens to be my aunt. So that was a really helpful connection. And she gave me advice on like. How to write the book, what to include on the back, and like tips such as that. And yeah, the book writing itself didn'ttake that much time. It was more like what came after that. Sheryl: You mentioned some of your team members as you talked about your book. Who else was on your team and how did they help you? Annie: I had the multiple vets, so Dr. Rogers and Dr. Dayton, they both work at the Humane Society Clinic, and I knew them through Ms. Feldman, who was my expert advisor. And they were the ones who, Dr. Roger was the one who reviewed my book. So that was super helpful, getting that credibility so people

(12:00):
actually knew that. My book had the right information and it was like worth checking out. And then Dr. Dayton came to my club, as I said, and she spoke to my club members, which is super helpful. Dr. Bellows also did that as well. And then I also had a lot of community partners, like I said, so like pet supermarket. And places like hotels that allowed me to put up my poster and I just had to go out into the community. Like I walked into their store and askedthem, would this be okay? And then I also had a few vet offices where I put that up. So Dr. Casper, he allowed me to put up my flyer at their animal hospital. So that was also very helpful. And then I'm very appreciative to my club advisor, Ms. Abramoff, she helped me. Create the pre-med club because it's a long process at my school to create a club. We have to be very resilient. But she helps that happen for me. And then just all those people who made those

workshops happen. So like all the people from the service unit, Ms. Johnson, the lower school principal who let me work with those lower school kids. And then of course, the graphic designer, Ms. Juliet the published author, Ms. Christie, and then my, of course, my gold award advisor and Mr. Viki. So yeah, those were all people. Part of my team. Sheryl (13:00):
What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it? Annie: Creating a way to get money to print my books. 'cause that was definitely an obstacle, like within the Gold Award guidelines, how I would figure that out. And I just turned to my community, so like the service unit, friends and family, and I had to make these flyers and I sent them out. I made the deal like $25. You print 10 books, you get one. And yeah, I ended up working out really well. Another obstacle was. Definitely like

(14:00):
making sure my project was sustainable. 'cause I know that's a hard thing for a lot of people trying to get their little word, silver word and like any of those. And I decided to of course, make things digital. So I have my digital PDF, not just like the 500 copies that would be sitting in someone's home and putting those around the community. And then my Instagram account, which is like still running. And then also my pre-vet club because it'll be taken over by people when I leave, and that'sjust gonna be a lasting impact at my school, so that's really cool. Sheryl: What's a special memory from your project? Annie: What I really loved about the workshops was like the feedback that the kids would give me especially at the lower schools. Like I remember some people, 'cause I had them fill out surveys for like my measurable impact. And I remember like, they would write like best presentation ever and they would tell me. This is so helpful. Like I'm gonna tell my parents about BFO

toads and this just helped me so much, and now I know how to help my animal, and like this is truly what happened. And it was just so rewarding and I loved. Hearing that feedback, especially from young people like them. Sheryl (15:00):
What other Girl Scout experiences have you had? Annie

more than 10 years now, so it's really cool being able to like get to this point. I've had a lot of amazing experiences. Sheryl (16:00):
What do you think kept your troops so strong that you were able to stay together through high school? Annie

have earned some other awards and some of those are. I like to say complimentary to your Girl Scout work because a lot of, a lot of people, you know, say, well, there's double dipping and you can't use your Girl Scout work for other things. But a lot of things that you've done are complimentary to Girl Scouts. Can you tell us about some of those awards and recognitions that you've earned? Annie (17:00):
Yes. So a really cool one that I got recently was Girl Scout of the Year, and that was awesome. I turned in like a resume of all the things I've done throughout the years. And Girl Scouts and of course they looked at my Gold award, I'm sure, and that was a really cool recognition to get. Another one was the Barbara Ann Turner service from the Heart Award that I got just recently. I wasn't able to make it to the Gold Award ceremony, so they surprised me with it like a few weeks later and it was amazing. And that's a scholarship where it's like for a student who has a lot of service hours

at one specific organization, and I thought I would fall right into that since I spent a lot of my time at the Humane Society. And yeah, I talked about my Girl Scout experience and my experience volunteering there, and I'm really, really lucky to have gotten that scholarship. Sheryl (18:00):
And you've also over many years earned the Presidential Service Volunteer Service Award. Can you tell us about that? Annie

make that happen. Sheryl (19:00):
Well, girl Scout scholarships will help with that. Annie