From Hurricane Camp to World Series: St. Pete Couple Who Helped Run the Trop’s Recovery Base Cheers the Rays Home

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From Hurricane Camp to World Series: St. Pete Couple Who Helped Run the Trop’s Recovery Base Cheers the Rays Home

“Thanks, Rays, for blowing the roof off the right way.”

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (Oct. 25, 2026) — Steve and Melissa Van Duzen know Tropicana Field in a very different way than most Rays fans. When Hurricane Helene hit St. Pete in 2024, the couple helped coordinate the setup of a small temporary city on the grounds outside the stadium, complete with a command center and portable office trailers: a place for linemen from all over the U.S. and even Canada, first responders and other recovery crews to eat, sleep, shower and park their trucks. Two weeks later, with Hurricane Milton headed for a direct hit, the whole camp had to be moved out of the way. Milton tore the roof off the stadium, and once it passed, they set the camp back up, bigger than before. On Monday, the World Series comes to the Trop.

“We were at the Trop for Helene with the roof on, and for Milton with the roof gone,” said Steve Van Duzen. “So, thank you, Rays, for blowing the roof off the right way this time. Seeing the World Series there means a lot to everyone who helped bring St. Pete back.”

With the Rays set to move to a new stadium in Tampa for the 2029 season, the couple calls this Series a pinnacle moment in the legacy of the Trop and baseball in St. Pete. “After everything that stadium and this city have been through, this is our moment,” Steve said. “This one’s for St. Pete.”

An opportunity for the people who keep St. Pete running

The Series will bring crowds, packed restaurants and a rush of rides and deliveries across Tampa Bay. For servers, bartenders, gig drivers and small business owners, the Van Duzens, who now run the St. Petersburg tax firm FL Tax Experts, say that extra money presents opportunities for significant tax savings that can mean thousands of dollars.

– Servers and bartenders: Write down your tips every shift. A 2025 federal law lets many tipped workers deduct up to $25,000 of qualified tips from federal taxable income for 2025 through 2028.
– Gig drivers: Track your miles from the moment you log on. They’re often a driver’s biggest deduction and hard to rebuild later.
– Anyone with side or self-employed income: Set money aside now. The next estimated tax payment is due January 15, 2027.
– Small business owners: Think about putting some of that money back into the business. The 2025 tax law made 100% first-year depreciation permanent, so equipment, and in some cases vehicles, bought and put to use by December 31 can often be written off this year instead of over several years. Vehicles have their own limits, so talk to a tax pro first, and buy what the business needs, not just for the deduction.
– Fans betting on the Series: Winnings on prediction-market apps like Kalshi are taxable, even though you may never get a tax form showing your trading profit. The IRS hasn’t said exactly how these event contracts should be reported, so download and keep your profit-and-loss statements. If you also bet at a sportsbook, starting with 2026 returns a 2025 law change lets you deduct only 90% of gambling losses, even if you broke even. And God forbid you placed the bet with bitcoin: spending crypto counts as selling it, so that’s a second tax event before the first pitch.

Not their first rodeo

The Trop is one chapter in a long record of showing up for their community:

– Veterans and COVID. It started during the pandemic. Many veterans, especially disabled and homeless veterans, don’t normally file tax returns, and for many of them filing was the only way to collect their COVID stimulus money. So the Van Duzens started TaxesForVets, paid for it themselves, loaded up a van and went looking for veterans, filing returns wherever they were.
– VITA. The IRS took notice and connected them with United Way Suncoast. TaxesForVets wrapped up as the work moved into the IRS’s free VITA program, with two all-volunteer tax sites, at the Enoch Davis Center in St. Petersburg and in Lealman, which prepared several thousand free returns and earned both of them the President’s Volunteer Service Award, letters of recognition from a former President of the United States and the Department of the Treasury, and 2023 certificates of appreciation from United Way Suncoast.
– Hurricanes Ian and Idalia. After Ian in 2022 and Idalia in 2023, Steve worked with the Florida Department of Children and Families to coordinate disaster food benefit (D-SNAP) sites. After Ian, that included the site at Raymond James Stadium. “Thousands of people came,” Steve said. “The line went around and even inside the stadium.” After Ian, he also audited debris removal and recovery sites in St. Pete.

Giving back through the business

The couple has built that same spirit into FL Tax Experts. Anyone with a tax question can book a free 20-minute Tax Office Hours call by phone or video, weekdays from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. It’s a real conversation, not a sales pitch: if you can handle your taxes yourself, they’ll tell you.

For those who do want help with their return, FL Tax Experts is also cutting its fee in half through April 15, 2027, for servers, bartenders and other restaurant workers, gig drivers, veterans, and seniors 65 and older with adjusted gross income under $60,000 ($90,000 for married couples filing jointly).

“Someone earning under $60,000 already pays 7.65% of every paycheck to Social Security and Medicare, and a self-employed driver pays about 14% of their profit,” said Steve Van Duzen. “Personally, I don’t think anyone making under $60,000 should have to pay income tax on top of that. But the laws are there, so it’s up to us to use them as best we can to our advantage. That’s what we help people do.”

“Veterans are where this all started for us,” said Melissa Van Duzen. “Now it’s servers and drivers working those World Series crowds, the people who keep this city going every night. This is our town, and we want our neighbors to keep as much of this moment as they can.”

To book a free Office Hours call, visit fltaxexperts.com/office-hours.html or call (727) 300-1676.

Photos from the Tropicana Field base camp, before and after the roof, are at fltaxexperts.com/st-pete-story.html. High-resolution copies are available on request.

FL Tax Experts is not affiliated with or endorsed by Tropicana Field, the Tampa Bay Rays, Major League Baseball or Kalshi.

About FL Tax Experts
FL Tax Experts is a locally owned tax preparation and small-business consulting firm in St. Petersburg, Florida, run by St. Pete residents Steve and Melissa Van Duzen. This release is general information, not tax advice.

Media contact
Steve and Melissa Van Duzen · (727) 300-1676 · st*****@**********ts.com · fltaxexperts.com

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