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Southwest Airlines Community

Charleston: Ready or Not, Here We Come!

Ana
Employee
Employee

After a lot of planning, hard work, and FUN we are finally ready to bring Southwest to Charleston, South Carolina! We’ve got some great activities lined up to celebrate this new relationship and we can’t wait to show the Lowcountry some LUV this weekend.

In fact, we started the celebration last night with about 350 Community Leaders who gathered at the Francis Marion Hotel for the Charleston County School District’s “An Evening with the Stars” Winter Gala.  

In collaboration with the Coastal Community Foundation, Southwest supported this night of celebration that included a gourmet dinner, music by The Joe Clark Big Band, Carolina Swag dancing (the official state dance of South Carolina), as well as a live auction complete with a special Southwest Airlines Vacation Package and trips to Nashville and San Diego that were awarded to the highest bidder. In fact, Brennen Daughtery and Michael Melton won both silent and live auction packages—a trip for two to San Diego including a hotel stay at the US Grant and two more roundtrip Southwest tickets that they were excited to use for a future vacation.

In recognition of the Charleston County School District’s quality educators, the gala proceeds will also allow for professional development by funding a Teacher Quality Symposium, aimed at improving student achievement and teacher effectiveness via coaching and job training.  One teacher from each school in the district was recognized for his or her outstanding work and awarded a little gold statue while the crowd applauded their accomplishments.   In honor of all teachers in attendance, we surprised one lucky teacher, Caley Jones, and announced that she was the grand prize winner--from a random drawing of all teachers in attendance—of two roundtrip tickets on Southwest Airlines.  It was a wonderful night to celebrate and thank the “STARS” of the evening— Charleston County School District Teachers!

This photo and the one above courtesy Jennifer Bearden

Tonight the celebration continues with a party at Southend Brewery for all 40 new Southwest Airlines Charleston Employees. Everyone loves a good costume party, so we’ll have a Roaring 20’s theme full of flappers and gangsters!

Saturday marks our Ferry Flight from Dallas to Charleston where Employee volunteers will be jetting off to join the FUN and be welcomed by a pep rally celebration at the airport! We are so excited to fly one of our SWA birds into Charleston and show them how to have a good time…Southwest style.

We won’t stop there, though. Saturday night we will host a progressive party in conjunction with Firefly Sweet Tea, hopping from place to place to show off all Charleston has to offer. Invited guests will enjoy fun specialty cocktails and appetizers at three locations throughout the night in honor of our nonstop markets!

After celebrating the Customers on our first flights out of Charleston on Sunday morning, we will show the Charleston community that Southwest truly cares by volunteering at the MUSC Children's Hospital and the Ronald McDonald House. Volunteers will be serving lunch, donating toys and pillowcases, and painting rooms and decorating rooms.

We’ll host a press conference on Monday officially commencing our start of service to the Lowcountry.  That’s a lot of LUV packed into one weekend and we are so excited to get to Charleston and show them we are here to stay!

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