Florida Man Gets Chance-of-a-Lifetime Trip to Chicago — For a Cause
Originally published on WGNtv.com
CHICAGO — If you could fly anywhere in the U.S., where would you go — and why?
For some, answering that question may seem strictly hypothetical. A daydream at worst, a function of months of saving at best. But for Wes Milligan of Miami, it was a reality, with the help of a national airline program, social media and a stranger.
Milligan, 36, is the most recent winner of JetBlue’s “Flying it Forward” program, in which participants enter to win a chance to go to their U.S. destination of choice by submitting — in just 140 characters — why they should, or would like to, earn the trip. Then that winner passes the prize on to another entrant in the city in which they arrive. The airline’s program aims to spread good will: the visiting of a long-lost relative, helping those in need, achieving a life-long goal.
For Milligan, “My passion has been not only to try and end Alzheimer’s, but to get young people involved,” he said. Milligan, a marketing volunteer at the Miami Walk to End Alzheimer’s, said he has not been directly affected by Alzheimer’s; no family members have suffered from the disease. But years ago as a journalist, he was assigned to an Alzheimer’s story, and got to meet some who were impacted.
