JetBlue Blog

Our fourth annual Swing For Good Golf Classic took place on Tuesday, and although the rainy weather proved a bit challenging, it didn’t keep nearly 300 business partners and crewmembers from participating in this important fundraising event.

With our 16th playground build right around the corner and all of our success with the Soar with Reading campaign, the event was a true celebration of our dedicated support to our partner charities, KaBOOM! and PBS Kids; we are proud to be associated with these organizations. In fact, over the past two years we have donated over a quarter of a million dollar’s worth of books to kids in need, and distributed more than 500,000 literacy based activity books across our network.

Learn more about our Corporate Social Responsibility team

Welcome to A Day in the Life, where we take you behind the scenes at JetBlue to learn more about the important jobs that work in concert together to run a major airline. This time, we visit with Icema, Jenna, Irma and Kate, who have one of the most generous jobs at our airline.

This four person team makes up our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) department, or the folks tasked with identifying charitable causes that make sense for JetBlue to support, and to allocate our resources accordingly.

The CSR team, led by Icema (who has been with us since JetBlue’s infancy when she was an operational leader at JFK), works in several capacities to support our philanthropic efforts. Overall, we support more than 1,000 non-profit organizations throughout the 71 cities that we serve. That support may range from financial contributions to in-kind donations to volunteer support, with the ultimate goal of moving the needle on social change in the areas of education, youth, environment and community.

The team wears many hats, including handling inbound inquiries for donations of funds; planning charity events like our annual Swing For Good Golf Classic (which just took place this week Tuesday); and organizing and empowering our 14,500 crewmembers to get out in their individual communities to volunteer for the causes they’re most passionate about. On any given day, the CSR team might be in Orlando with professional basketball players reading to hundreds of kids as part of Soar With Reading initiative, digging in the dirt to plant trees for our One Thing That’s Green campaign, or building relationships with our partners around the JetBlue network.

Our Soar With Reading event in New York

Many companies and celebrities now feel an obligation to have a charitable arm which donates to its largest bases as part of its regular operations, but at JetBlue, we are a little different in our thinking. We have always believed that giving back to the communities in which we serve is not a corporate obligation, but rather a moral one. Not only do our customers live in the cities that we fly to, but our crewmembers do as well, and we feel strongly about our responsibility to support those neighborhoods as best we’re able.

Some national partners that we have longstanding relationships with include:

• Carbonfund.org
• DoSomething.org
• First Book
• KaBOOM!
• PBS
• VH1 Save the Music

In 2012 alone we have:

• Donated $200,000 worth of books to kids in need, through our Soar with Reading program
• Decorated and delivered 2,100 quilts to children in hospitals throughout the JetBlue network, through our partner Soaringwords
• Pledged to plant a tree for everyone traveling with us on Earth Day, which resulted in over 83,000 trees, in honor of our 5^th annual One Thing That’s Green Campaign!
• Built new KaBOOM! playgrounds – in San Juan, PR, Long Beach, CA, Boston, MA and Oakland, CA. Each of the new play spaces were designed with the help of local children and built by JetBlue Crewmembers, customers and local residents. In 2012 alone, together with KaBOOM!, JetBlue engaged over 825 volunteers, to build four new playgrounds that will serve 5,228 children.
• And many more!

Our crewmembers are encouraged to go out into their local communities though our Community Connections program. So far this year, 2,014 crewmembers have volunteered 16,341 hours for 345 non-profits across the cities that we serve. For every 25 hours a crewmember volunteers, we donate one round trip ticket to their charity of choice. Crewmembers who volunteer more than 100 hours of their time are invited to an annual recognition dinner. “All of the rewards are important mainly because they demonstrate that we value crewmember engagement within their communities and it allows us to further align our corporate giving with crewmembers’ passions,” shared Jenna from the CSR team.

Our KaBOOM! playground build

Of course we don’t do the right thing in order to get recognition, but our community efforts have received accolades including CSR Cause Branding Campaign of the Year from PR News for our 2011 Soar with Reading program, which aims to help kids’ imaginations take flight through reading; to learn more about that award click here. We were also awarded the For Planet and People Award in the travel category, by Carbonfund.org, for our long-standing partnership and commitment to reducing the environmental impact of our crewmembers and customers. For more information on that award, click here.

“My favorite part of working on the CSR team is when crewmembers share the impact our donation of tickets had on their child’s school or an animal shelter or one of the other 300 organizations we support. The rewards may seem small but have a huge impact on morale,” said Kate.

Check out the previous editions of A Day In The Life and meet:

• Caroline, Ashley and Donny from our Product Development team
• Frank and Jerry in Technical Operations
• Kristi in Customer Support
• Rick, an Executive Coordinator for our CEO
• Chris, Lashonne and Jaclyn from  Brand Design
• Jeff and Greg from Schedule Planning
• Loretta in Security
• Chris in Inflight
• Morgan in Social Media
• Don in Air Traffic System Control
• Mike in Ground Operations
• And stay tuned for the next edition!

Our fourth annual Swing for Good Golf Classic and Bid for Good online auction together make up our largest fundraising effort of the year. Help us reach our goal of raising $1 million to benefit two of our long-standing charitable partners – KaBOOM! and PBS Kids. Bid on items ranging from luxurious all inclusive Getaways packages and exclusive access to VIP sporting events to one-of-a-kind experiential opportunities, and provide much needed funding to these great non-profit organizations. Visit Charitybuzz.com/JetBlue and bid today through Oct.18 on items including:

• A chance to throw the first pitch at a Boston RedSox game
• VIP tickets to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in Los Angeles
• An Eli Manning signed jersey
• Four passes to the 2013 PGA Championship
• Super Bowl 2013 tickets
• Tickets to the 2013 Academy of Country Music Awards
• MTV Movie Award tickets
• Pit passes at a NASCAR race
• A private PBS Kids party featuring a live musical performance by PBS Kids Host Mr. Steve
• VIP tickets to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in New York City; and much more.

Additionally, as part of this year’s fundraising efforts, we’ll also raise funds for both non-profit organizations at our fourth annual Swing For Good Golf Classic, held on Tues, Oct. 9, 2012 at Bethpage State Park Golf Courses.

Our non-profit partners are near and dear to our heart. Kaboom! envisions a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. In addition to raising funds, our crewmembers have helped build 15 playgrounds and counting as part of our partnership. PBS Kids, the number one educational media brand for kids, is another longtime collaborator. Just this summer, we partnered with PBS Kids to provide more than $200,000 worth of books to children in need through our Soar with Reading literacy program.

More than 300 volunteers from as far as England came to help build our 15th playground with our partners at KaMOOM! and a dozen other playground structures for the students of Oakland’s Community School for Creative Education.

Everyone pitched in to build, organize and clean. The KaBOOM! team had organization and logistics down to a science. Crewmembers from different cities and departments and even JetBlue pilot, Captain Russ showed up to help. All the General Managers from all the Bay Area cities, San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco and Sacramento came early and stayed late to finish their projects. It was specially fun to watch SFO’s GM, Ken get covered in concrete dust as they mixed it for some of the play structure’s foundation.

KPFA DJ, Jose Ruiz set up his gear at 7am. He got there early and full of jokes. He and DJ Scott Manley played throughout the day. Music made the task lighter and time fly faster; their music selection was worldly, fun and upbeat.

Joi Glass from High Street’s 24-hour fitness did not disappoint. She had the volunteers’ adrenaline going before the building started and to get everyone stretched and limber for the day’s work.

People from the community, school, all walks of life and great distances came to help each other and create a good environment for kids. Everybody was dirty, sweaty yet smiling and laughing knowing that their contribution, no matter how big or small, will leave an indelible mark in the future of the school and its students.

Perhaps best summarized by CSCE’s principal, Becky Westbrook, in her speech during the ribbon-cutting ceremony, with her voice cracking, her eyes swelling with tears she thanked everyone from the bottom of her heart and ended that, “it’s all for the kids.”

We’re proud to announce a partnership with the Community School for Creative Education and KaBOOM! to build our next playground in Oakland, CA today. We’ve worked with our long-standing partner KaBOOM! over the last seven years to build playgrounds for children across our network. The playground location was determined in February by our customers who were invited to vote on the next playground location on our Facebook page. The Bay Area was the lucky winner and will have a brand new park this summer, the 15th playground built through the partnership and the third in California.

As the funding partner for this build, JetBlue volunteers and community residents will work side-by-side to create a new playground for the children of the Community School for Creative Education. This will be our second playground built in California this year and record fourth playground built in 2012 (Long Beach, CA; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Boston, MA: San Francisco, CA; and New York, NY). In seven years, JetBlue and KaBOOM! have built 15 playgrounds, engaged more than 3,000 volunteers and served more than 8,000 children every year by providing a safe place to play.

We’re making it even easier for fans to attend our upcoming, exclusive Live From T5 performance by the chart-topping British-Irish male pop vocal group The Wanted on Wednesday, August 22 at 6 p.m. ET. Today only, use promo code THEWANTED while supplies last for 50% off roundtrip flights to New York’s JFK on August 22 with a return the same day or on August 23.

Codes are subject to limited availability, so book at jetblue.com to catch the performance. Customers planning to catch The Wanted’s Live From T5 performance should plan travel times accordingly.

Eager fans wanting to attend The Wanted’s exclusive Live From T5 performance should follow @thewantedmusic for additional chances to win passes. We’re also teamed up with Charitybuzz.com, the leading destination for online charity auctions for an opportunity to meet The Wanted prior to the show. Proceeds for the auction will go to our Swing for Good charitable campaign benefitting KaBOOM! and PBS KIDS. Bidding is available at www.Charitybuzz.com/LivefromT5.

Learn more about the upcoming Live From T5 concert with The Wanted

We teamed up with our long-time partners Kaboom! and children from Oakland’s Community School for Creative Education for “design day” on our first Bay Area playground build, which will be later this month.  Our team, composed of crewmembers from our Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Jose stations, joined the important and fun first step in the playground’s development.

We were impressed with the kids’ creativity as the students let their imaginations run wild during the design session.  After the crayons were set aside, students presented their individual designs in front of everyone.  Kaboom! coordinator, Kristin’s experience with kids and volunteers kept the day’s agenda in order.  After the presentation and sticker awards, parents and volunteers from the school along with JetBlue crewmembers were divided into nine committees.  The committees’ task included overseeing logistics, acquiring tools, safety, partnership generation, fundraising and volunteer recruitment.  The preparation for the actual playground build is an eight-week process culminating on August 18 at 2111 International Blvd in Oakland, CA.  Stay tuned for more!

Despite the heat, throngs of volunteers turned out yesterday to build a playground at Costa Park in Revere, Massachusetts. The venture was a team effort with our partners at KaBOOM! as well as The Neighborhood Developers and the City of Revere to build our 14th playground.

This is our fourth playground build in Boston and the second built in Costa Park. This past October, we built the 5-12 year olds of Revere a playground; this new play space is for 2-5 year olds. The new playground will provide a safe play space for 500 children. Crewmembers from our station at Boston Logan International Airport, where we’re the largest airline with more than 45 destinations, volunteered our efforts to help build the playground in just one day’s time. We’ve helped to build playgrounds in Kissimmee and Orlando, Florida, Long Island City, New York, Long Beach, California, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Washington D.C., among other cities.

Learn more about our previous playground builds

Our A320 soars above the new playground! Captured by our crewmember and photographer Stephen Tornblom

Our first playground build of 2012 took place in Long Beach, California last week Thursday was a great success! More than 200 volunteers, including our Long Beach crewmembers and our community partners at KaBOOM! and elsewhere joined forces to build local kids a safe place to play in just one day!

Check out the below images from the build and vote for the home of our next KaBOOM! playground!

Learn more about our partnership with KaBOOM! and past playground builds.

We’re teaming up with long-time partner KaBOOM! to build our 12th playground in 12 years today at the Fairfield Family Branch YMCA in Long Beach, Calif. The playground build began with a kickoff ceremony at 8:30 a.m. PT and the ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held when the playground is completed at 2:30 p.m.

A great place to play for school-age kids (ages 5-12) will improve community health, develop children’s social skills and combat childhood obesity. KaBOOM! and JetBlue know that kids play harder and get more exercise when they play in an unstructured way. This playground will provide the perfect space for unstructured play and, given the high number of kids served at the Fairfield YMCA, would be an important part of the solution to the neighborhood’s obesity problem.

Members and nonmembers of the Fairfield Branch will all benefit from its programs and will rally together to make this playground project successful. Hundreds of volunteers have signed up to support this activity. They view the Fairfield Branch as a safe community space that brings together neighborhood children and will donate their time, money and efforts to this project. Through working with its members, parents and volunteers, the Fairfield YMCA’s project planning committee is ready to build a great new place to play.

The playground is the 12th built by KaBOOM! and JetBlue in an effort to fight the play deficit and save play. We’ve helped to build playgrounds in Greater Boston, Massachusetts; Salt Lake City, Utah; Kissimmee and Orlando, Florida; and Long Island City, New York, among others.

Learn more about our partnership with KaBOOM! and past playground builds.