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Randy's Story: Southwest Airlines and Make-A-Wish® Team Up to Give 5-Year-Old a Magical Day

lskinner
Employee
Employee

At Southwest, our Purpose is to connect People to what’s important in their lives and our partnership with Make-A-Wish® allows us to do just that by providing meaningful travel to Make-A-Wish families. Since the partnership began in 2011, Southwest has donated more than 15,000 tickets valued at more than $6.3 million to Make-A-Wish and has helped grant more than 4,000 wishes. While we continuously support this impactful organization by providing travel to wishes, we recently had a special opportunity to be a part of Randy’s day!

 

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Randy is an adorable 5-year-old boy who has endured three open-heart surgeries due to a rare heart condition. His wish was to be a Southwest Airlines Mechanic and our Employees at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) were more than happy to help make this dream come true!

 

Our LAX Ground Ops and Tech Ops Employees and our vendors embraced Randy’s wish and truly made magic happen on the wish day. Cintas, our apparel provider, outfitted Randy with a custom Southwest Mechanic Uniform while LAX Ops Agent Helen Vincent specially tailored a Safety vest to fit Randy, complete with his name and “Aircraft Mechanic” embroidered on it.

 

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Alan, an LAX Mechanic, was Randy’s personal escort for the day and made sure Randy experienced everything our Mechanics do on the job. To prepare Randy for his day as a Mechanic, Alan personalized a toolbox complete with real tools donated from the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology. The personalized toolbox and cart for Randy to pull it was a huge hit—it never left Randy’s side! The rest of the day was a flurry of maintenance activities like engine and tire checks, a tour of the maintenance shop, and hanging out with all of the Mechanics. Giving back is at the Heart of what we do at Southwest and we enjoyed playing a role in Randy’s day.

 

 

If you’re interested in supporting Make-A-Wish and other impactful charitable organizations, join us by donating your Rapid Rewards points through our Points for a Purpose program. With your help, it’s possible for more inspiring wishes like Randy’s to come true. Learn more at www.swa.is/pointsdonation.

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