- December 4, 2025
For three Ormond Beach women, what started as a battle to protect their community from a fuel terminal project is now the foundation for a new organization aiming to keep people engaged and safeguard what they love most about their hometown.
Residents Elena Krafft, Robin Magleora and Britney Álamos are the founders of Protect Volusia, a recently-launched nonprofit with a mission to advocate for responsible growth, government transparency and environmental preservation. The founders announced the creation of the nonprofit on July 17 on the Protect Volusia Facebook page.
Creating an organization had been on their mind since 2023, when the women led a local grassroots effort to push back against the development of a fuel farm by Belvedere Terminals near the city limits of Ormond Beach at 874 Hull Road.
"With the fuel terminal, we all came together to try to protect our community," Krafft said. "We got to meet such wonderful people. I couldn't believe the amount of people that were just, absolutely ready to fight, ready to protect the place."
Throughout the course of the next two years, they developed a good relationship with others in the community — and that stayed with them, Krafft said. It organically grew into advocating for other issues people were facing, like flooding, development concerns and feeling unheard by their elected officials.
Founding Protect Volusia was a way they could help people stay connected and provide resources to help bridge the gap between citizens and their elected representatives.
And, do so with a countywide scope.
"By getting the community together, there's a place where they can come and say, 'Hey, these are our concerns in our area,' and we can all help each other here in Volusia County," said Magleora, a former firefighter/paramedic. "We all live here. We should be working together as a group."
Additionally, part of their nonprofit's mission is to highlight the positive things occurring in the county to showcase why it needs to be protected, Magleora added.
As a way to fund their efforts, Protect Volusia has launched a shop on its website, with 100% of the proceeds going directly toward advocacy efforts. Among the items for sale are some of Magleora's own wildlife photography.
"We have so much good in this county," she said. "People should be proud to live here."
For Álamos, part of that is also emphasizing the need to protect local wildlife and green spaces.
"Living here, we see how beautiful it is," Álamos said, adding that her motivation for the nonprofit revolves around "how beautiful our natural resources are, and protecting those resources — keeping nature natural."
What Protect Volusia is not, the women said, is political.
"Protect Volusia has always been non-partisan," Magleora said.
Krafft said that's very important to her. As a public health professional, community outreach is a big part of her job. It makes her upset, she said, to see people feel helpless.
"I want them to know that their voice matters — it truly does," Krafft said. "That is it. That is really the bottom line: amplifying community voices."
The next step for Protect Volusia is to find community liaisons at every level of government and municipality, Krafft said. They want to hear what concerns their communities have, and work together to give them the tools and resources to spread the word at the local level.
There are many citizens who aren't aware of when their city meetings are held, or what's coming up on the next agenda, Magleora said. Protect Volusia has compiled a lot of that information on their website to make it easier for people.
"If there's one thing we've learned because of Belvedere, is that our voices do matter," Magleora said. "And that when the community comes together and uses their voices, we can make a change."
Visit https://protectvolusia.org.
