About Solivita CERT                                                                                  

Your Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is comprised of residents like you who are trained to respond after a large-scale disaster.  We are not a social club.  Most of us have minimal past experience as responders, but have volunteered to take on this role for our community.

Our objectives are:

• To be able to respond effectively to disaster events in or affecting Solivita.
• To assist Solivita residents in preparing properly for disasters.
• To support Polk County and regional response needs.

Sponsored by Polk County Fire Rescue, we undergo standardized training in damage assessment, light search and rescue, medical triage and first aid, fire suppression, incident command and control, situation size-up and disaster psychology.  At the completion of training each member receives a backpack filled with emergency supplies.  We are continually improving our skills and practicing them too.  This will help us deal with natural or man-made disaster situations.  In a disaster we operate under the county Emergency Operations Center and work closely with local administration.

In keeping with our objectives, we offer other services such as:

• Readiness tips for residents in Reflections
• Preparedness info (at the concierge and on our 'club' webpage on SolivitaHOA.com)
• Loans of medical equipment (wheelchairs, walkers, etc. -- now in R2R office, 863-236-9973 )
• Smoke detector battery replacement (only in the spring), for residents who cannot climb a ladder or otherwise replace their own batteries

We also provide Community services…

• FREE CPR classes (Check-Call-Compress), chest compression-only CPR with AED training
• Traffic management at community events
• Crowd management for parades

On the other hand we:

• Are NOT handymen;
• Are NOT personal nurses;
• DON’T have baby equipment to loan;
• DO NOT provide transportation to the hospital.

If you would like to learn more about CERT contact Wayne at 863-514-6728 or visit one of our meetings on the first Monday each month (see Calendar in Reflections) or visit our ‘club’ webpage on SolivitaHOA.com and look at the documents there.