GREENSBORO, N.C. -- High school student Jacqueline Vaquera is working on her senior service project with her classmates.

"We were doing a mural and I just asked a bunch of my friends if they wanted to do a mural as a cast project and they were all on board,” said Vaquera, who is an IB student at Grimsley High School preparing for graduation in a couple weeks.

For most seniors this time of the year can be hectic. You have college applications and exams to worry about but Vaquera is doing all this while trying to weather the storm.

The EF 2 tornado that hit Greensboro in April destroyed Vaquera's childhood home of almost 15 years.

She remembers the damage left behind.

"All the glass, the windows shattered, parts of the wall kinda broke apart," Vaquera said.

She was upstairs in bedroom when the storm snatched her roof.

"I looked up. The roof was gone and I could see the clouds and the rain was coming down,” said Vaquera.

"She's just resilient. She has her mind made up of what she wants to do," said her school counselor Michael Harrington. "She's been in school and continues to do really well. She's at the top of her class."

Vaquera also managed to score in the 98th percentile on the ACT’s. She says she wasn't going to let the storm stop her from succeeding.

Vaquera will be attending Duke in the fall. She plans to double major in psychology and communications.