By Elizabeth Baier
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Inspired by a congresswoman she had never met before and her own love of animals, Hannah Gifford made a resolution Saturday afternoon.

"I'm going to start a petition to raise awareness in my school ... about animal rights," the 13-year-old Plantation resident said after hearing U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, speak about the importance of advocacy.

Gifford joined 240 other South Florida girls from grades six through nine at the Davie campus of Florida Atlantic University for an empowerment program designed to teach girls about self-defense, healthy eating habits and their power to change their communities.

Girl Scouts of Broward County partnered with Wasserman Schultz and Uniquely ME!, a joint Girl Scouts and Dove Self-Esteem Fund program, to host the half-day event, held for the first time in Broward. The girls represented troops from Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.

Throughout the morning, the girls discussed how to stand up for their beliefs with Wasserman Schultz, did push-ups and sit-ups with champion Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes, learned personal safety techniques with Officer Tiffany Richards of the Davie Police Department and listened to Gina Otto, author of the children's book Cassandra Angel's, speak about inner beauty. Between sessions, they toted pink diaries and plastic bags emblazoned with the familiar green Girl Scout logo as they walked around the university campus.

Sitting in the back row of Room 124 of the Liberal Arts Building, Gifford told Wasserman Schultz and about 60 other girls why she decided to become a vegetarian several months ago.

"It's not fair to the animals," said Gifford, who's been a Girl Scout since kindergarten. "I think it's really good for people to be advocates for things they believe in."

Almost 190,000 girls across the country have participated in the Uniquely ME! Program since its inception in 2002, according to Leanne Gluck, the national program manager. The goal is to offer activities to inspire girls to develop a sense of individualism, leadership and self-confidence, she said.

For the girls of Fort Lauderdale's Troop 430, scouting is also about having fun. In the last few years, they've caroled in front of supermarkets, kept in touch with pen pals in North Carolina, Texas and Australia, camped in each other's backyards and visited Kennedy Space Center. Five of those scouts, ages 12 through 14, wore their badge-covered vests on Saturday as proof of their commitment to learning and adventure.

"We don't know about a lot of things, but we go out and do different things to learn about them," said Taylor White, 13, of Fort Lauderdale. "It's just fun."

That's the lesson Wasserman Schultz, a former Girl Scout, hoped the girls would take home.

"Girl Scouts teaches you things you've never done before," Wasserman Schultz said. "Girl Scouts helped me with leadership skills and being involved in the community."