UncategorizedMay 12, 2021

Meet Steven VanDyke | Encouragement Merchandiser and 911 Alert app creator

Local Stories

Today we’re excited to introduce you to Steven VanDyke. Steven is an Encouragement Merchandiser and 911 Alert app creator and is also a content partner. Content partners help Voyage in so many ways from spreading the word about the work that we do, sponsoring our mission and collaborating with us on content like this. Check out our conversation with Steven below.

Hi Steven, so great to have you join us again. For folks who might have missed our earlier conversations, can you please take a minute to briefly introduce yourself?
My name is Steven VanDyke. I was born in Kingston, New York on September 2, 1973. My family moved to College Park, Georgia, where I lived and grew up. I graduated from Benjamin E. Banneker High School and attended college at Jackson State University in Jackson, MS, earned a B.S. Business Administration with a concentration in Management degree, and I currently live in Riverdale, Georgia with my beautiful wife Crystal VanDyke whom I married on September 2, 2000. I am an entrepreneur & CEO of VanDyke Entertainment created in 1994, Fight…Win…Survive in 2012, and the creator of the 911 Alert app in 2020.

Can you briefly explain how the 911 Alert app works? What led you to create 911 Alert?
911 Alert is a mobile phone app that dials 911 when the user calls it through the installed app. The app immediately sends a text message to the pre-selected emergency contact(s) letting them know that a 911 call was made and provides the location of the call, along with a link that allows the emergency contact to navigate to the location of the call via their phone’s navigational GPS.

One “In-app” feature consists of the emergency contact(s) who will have immediate chat access with the 911 caller and to each other to provide any information or communication that will keep each person in the loop of what the emergency is or was. (This feature is active for 72 hours after the 911 call is made).

A second “in-app” feature is the live tracking of the 911 caller’s phone by the emergency contact(s). This feature allows the contact(s) to know where the caller is, where they are either going, or where they are being taken after their initiated call. In large population cities where there are several hospitals, this feature helps identify which hospital where the caller has been taken if the caller has not been able to communicate that information in the chat. (This feature is active for 24 hours after the 911 call has been made).

I created this app after my sister Kimberly suffered a massive stroke on July 8, 2018. As with many things that are created or developed from an identified need or situation, 911 Alert was definitely an idea that was birthed from that scare and experience. My sister was fortunate to have my mother there in front of her when her stroke occurred, and she survived because of that, with my mother being able to call 911 immediately. However, on my wife’s side of the family and a little over a month after my sister’s massive stroke (August 2018), the need for the app became more apparent and in focus to create when her cousin Connie unfortunately passed away from a heart attack while enroute to the hospital while being taken there by emergency services after she had called 911 herself, but no one in the family knew it until over a week later, as generally, any 911 call that’s made is usually only between the caller and the 911 operator. Perhaps, had the 911 Alert app been available, the family could have possibly known a lot sooner that Connie had called 911 and which hospital she had been taken to. By October 2018 and after those two back to back instances, I got the ball rolling and laid the framework for creating the 911 Alert app.

What’s the benefit that you see 911 Alert playing in society?
The benefit that I see 911 Alert playing in society is having people prepared for an emergency. No one wants to have and most people do not plan for an emergency, it tends to be the farthest thing in our minds. It’s why so many people are taken by surprise when an emergency occurs. That’s why the one thing that 911 Alert provides is the opportunity for preparation.

The app is free to download and provides one emergency contact with a free subscription. Although every business is typically in business to make money, my first goal with the app is to have it on everyone’s phone. I truly hope that no one has to use it, but if you do, you will already have one emergency contact who will know that you have called 911 when, or if you do.

Our paid subscription is an affordable $4.99 a year and it allows subscribers to have up to ten emergency contacts instead of one. This again goes to being prepared with the subscriber identifying who the main people are in one’s circle who they would want informed in the case of an emergency? Having the app causes the users to think about the “what if” that might occur, and it opens communication with those individuals and just having the conversation is at the least more important to me than any amount of profit that I could make.

Hopefully, a company like Google will see the benefit of this app being on every user’s phone and will want it as a pre-installed app. That would be a true indicator of how much of a benefit 911 Alert could be in today’s society.

Fight…Win…Survive is the parent company for 911 Alert which is an appropriate name running parallel with the app. What is Fight…Win…Survive and what other products or services does it provide?
Fight…Win…Survive is an encouragement merchandiser and ministry outreach company. Although a lot of our efforts fall closely in line with a non-profit organization, we are actually for profit. One of our tag lines is “in this life everyone has to go through or deal with something…” and that is absolutely true. No matter how well off you are in terms of money in the bank, a good job, a great family, a wonderful life; things happen that are within and beyond our control. Death, drug abuse/addiction, sickness, incarceration, mental illness and any other imaginable thing can change us and our lives in the blink of an eye.

Our goal with Fight…Win…Survive is simple, to touch, impact, and save lives through our messaging and our apparel such as t-shirts and wristbands, through music like our digital release of “The Power of Prayer,” through our books like “My Thanksgiving Journal” “Words of Wisdom, Points of Power and Biblical Empowerment” and “The Prayer Book.”

Our most popular item that we sell are the wristbands, they’re affordable ($5 shipped), can be worn every day and accessorized as people have purchased them in several colors. Having the wristband on the wrist becomes a daily reminder that whatever “it” is in one’s life, to Fight…Win…Survive.

Helping people has become my ministry in life.

It was so great to reconnect. One last question – how can our readers connect with you, learn more or support you?
We can be found online for Fight…Win…Survive at www.FightWinSurvive.com and 911 Alert at www.911Alert.app.

Social media we can be found at:
www.facebook.com/fightwinsurvive
www.facebook.com/911alertapp
www.instagram.com/fightwinsurvive
www.instagram.com/911alertapp