Times of crisis often bring out the best in us, but an often overlooked part of the process is the before — when institutions and individuals organize to prepare for exactly that scenario. Enter the Stetson Ready Team.
The Ready Team is Stetson University’s answer to the question, “How can we help Volusia County in a time of crisis?” This volunteer organization rallies a troop of Stetson community members, including students and faculty, and coordinates with local governments so that when a hurricane or other natural disaster strikes the area, the team can effectively help.
“We wanted to do something to support our community. One thing that Stetson has is a lot of people who are able to provide manual labor to help fix problems that are out there,” Kevin Winchell, director of community engagement at Stetson and head of the Ready Team, said.
Winchell volunteered for the program back when he was a student at Stetson himself. When a tornado ripped through DeLand’s south side in 2007, leaving significant damage in its wake, it inspired him to step up.
“Waking up to that and seeing it, I just felt the need to go out and do what I could to help people who are having the worst day of their lives,” Winchell said. “Because that’s our responsibility in a community.”
And he’s not the only one. William Nylen, a professor and longtime resident of DeLand, also witnessed the devastation of the ’07 tornado and volunteered with the Ready Team.
“We were in an area that was just devastated by the tornado, I’d never seen anything like that before,” Nylen said, adding, “My kids were young at the time, I wanted them to understand that we come to the assistance of the community if we can, if we have the ability to help. It was part of an educational thing for them, and it was also the feeling of wanting to do something.”
After years of working at the institution, Winchell realized that the team had disbanded for a time since the group’s founder, religious studies professor Greg Sapp, passed away in 2020. But this year, with an active hurricane season projected, Winchell thought it was time to bring it back.
Under Sapp’s leadership, the Ready Team assisted in several relief efforts over the years. Students and faculty have taken to the streets to assist in clearing the roads of debris, cutting up fallen trees and getting supplies and home-cooked meals to families and elderly community members.
Even in the time after the group temporarily disbanded, when a tornado hit the area in 2020 and a severe tropical storm hit last year, students went into the community on their own accord to help with relief efforts. Now, the more coordinated Ready Team offers a safer and more organized way for these proactive students to still offer help to community members during times of crisis.
Winchell believes that Stetson’s students tend to really care about social action and activism, so when disaster strikes, and its effects are so clearly visible across communities, it becomes difficult to ignore.
“We teach our students that our values are centered on personal and social responsibility,” Winchell said. “And there are few opportunities that are as clear and present and actionable as disaster response.”
Students, faculty and staff at Stetson can volunteer to be on the Ready Team through Winchell, through the form linked through the group’s Stetson Today announcement, or through the team’s website, which will be up and running in the coming weeks. Community members outside of Stetson can also coordinate with the team and the city to express their interest in aiding local disaster relief efforts should the need arise.
RECOGNIZED — Future Florida Gov. Charlie Crist pays a visit to Stetson University’s Ready Team during a 2000 cleanup effort. From left, with Crist, are then-students Matthew Morton, Sarah Edwards, Abigail Heisner, Matt Detlefson and Florencia Abelenda.
“I hope that it’s a more permanent thing, because whether it’s Stetson or the hospital or some large employer in this area, every organization should have a ready team equivalent so that people can help the community in times of need. It’s a standard that should really be adopted more, I think,” Nylen said.
The biggest point that Winchell stressed is that the Ready Team was created to support the community surrounding Stetson, not just the often insular community of the university itself.
“Stetson cares deeply about our West Volusia community. And we don’t see this as just an opportunity to be involved. We see it as a responsibility to be involved,” Winchell said.
