South Florida Council

The South Florida Council is a 501(c)(3) organization chartered by the Boy Scouts of America to serve Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe Counties in South Florida. As of 2022, the South Florida Council had a membership of more than 20,000 youth and adults in traditional and in-school and after-school programs.

In 1911, the Miami Council was formed. It merged with the Dade County Council (#084) in 1921. In 1927, the Broward County Council was formed. It merged with the Dade County Council in 1933 and the Council's current geographical boundaries had been formed, consisting of Broward, Dade, and Monroe Counties. In 1945, the Dade County Council changed its name to the South Florida Council (#084).

A year after Scouting began in Miami, the tradition of an annual recognition banquet began. In May, 1912, newspaper accounts reported that Scouts were called upon at the banquet to recount the "good turns" they had performed. Their deeds ranged from the prosaic, such as picking up debris from roads and running errands, to the bygone ("holding someone's horse") and the dramatic (rescuing a person who fell into a river). Also in 1912, the auditorium of a former school building in Miami was converted into a gymnasium for Boy Scouts to use.

As 1913 drew to a close, a highlight for Miami Scouts was a visit to Villa Serena, the winter home of then-U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan. Introduced as "one of America's greatest Scouts and citizens", Bryan spoke to the youths from his front porch as they stood at attention and rendered the Scout Salute.

As early as the 1920s, there were more than 300 Scouts in Key West, the southernmost point of the United States. In 1938, a gala council-wide gathering was held in Key West, headlined on page one of the Key West Citizen as an "impressive Scout campfire rally". Key West mayor William Albury addressed the assemblage, preceded by a parade.

A highlight for the South Florida Council in later years was the youth encampment held on Lammas Island in 1976 as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration that year. A joint effort with the City of Miami and the U.S. Coast Guard 7th District, it was called the 1976 Bicentennial Project for the Youth of Miami. Upon completion of a permanent dock on the island, it was dubbed "Miami Scouting World" and marked with a bronze plaque.

Hurricanes have been a significant part of the Council's history. In the aftermath of the catastrophic 1935 Labor Day hurricane which devastated the Florida Keys and killed hundreds, Boy Scouts from the Dade County Council, as it was then known, were part of the clean-up efforts and participated in the ceremonies dedicating the Islamorada Memorial in November, 1937.

When Hurricane Andrew struck the Homestead area in 1992, the Council organized Scout troops outside the ravaged area to help distribute emergency food and clothing. The Council's own archived records were lost in 2005 when Hurricane Wilma tore the roof off of a storage building and inundated the vicinity with flood waters. Severe damage was also sustained by Camp Seminole, the Council's principal reservation, resulting in its closure for seven years until it was eventually rebuilt and re-opened in 2012 as Camp Elmore (below). More recently, Hurricane Irma in 2017 damaged the Council's camp on Scout Key.