MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — After hurricanes Helene and Milton, a Sarasota second-grade class turned the community’s heartbreak into action by designing a hurricane preparedness app.

What You Need To Know

  • A group of second graders at Hershorin Schiff Community Day School used a school project to design a hurricane preparedness app to help residents.

  • The class spoke with meteorologists and even decorated their classroom as if it was in a hurricane to learn more about it

  • In order to make this app real, the class wrote letters intended for city officials to read that would lead to funding for the app

While for now it’s just a class project, the students’ teacher, Pipa Bonkessel, says she has high hopes of turning it into a real tool for residents.

“So I think it would be very, very cool. But the biggest thing we were trying to do was make that impact on our students and show them that they can do a lot more than they think they can,” said the teacher at Hershorin Schiff Community Day School.

From Imagination: “We are under the hurricane. We made it to try to symbolize that you are actually in a hurricane,” Parker Buchanan said.

To Creation: “We had rain drops we made with our groups,” she explained.

Buchanan and her classmates learned what hurricanes are and how to prepare for them by researching and even decorating the entire classroom after experiencing the devastation from the recent storms.

“We made this like a warning, like a hurricane is coming,” she said.

But Parker and the rest of her second-grade class wanted to give a real warning to help residents by creating an app that will inform families on how to prepare for a hurricane.

It all started with an idea.

“Nowadays, people’s phones are their prized possession. So why not an app?” she said.

And the class decided on a name and a logo.

“Helping Hurricane Hands means it’s an app to help people,” she said.

All you have to do is click on one of the eight different topics it provides, like supplies you should buy (all under $100) and what to bring to an emergency shelter.

“Prepare an emergency kit — it’s right here,” she said.

The class divided each of the topics into posters to explain what each is.

“So, how to prepare an emergency kit? We have, like, phone, general, important documents, food, water, medicine, first aid, clothing, bedding,” she explained.

The end goal is for this app to become real. To do that, they need funding.

So, the students each wrote a letter that will be sent to city officials.

Parker's note said: “This should become a real app because it could save a lot of lives and people’s homes and money. The app would inform lots of new residents about hurricanes. Sincerely, Parker Lee Buchanan."

The students have proven that big ideas can rise from the smallest voices, turning a classroom project into a potential life-saving tool.

The teacher says she is planning on delivering the letters by next week and hopes to invite some of the city officials to visit the classroom.