Spirit Airlines celebrates arrival in Rochester by donating to local down syndrome achievement center

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Spirit Airlines will start its first daily non-stop flights out of Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport on Wednesday.  The discount airline is finally launching the service after several months of delays. 

When Spirit starts flying out of a new city it makes a donation to a local charity in that city. Spirit chose GiGi’s Playhouse on North Goodman Street, which is a down syndrome achievement center in Rochester.

Donna Rush, the executive director of GiGi’s Playhouse, said when she first got an email from the company, she thought it was a scam. On Tuesday, the airline company presented her with a check for $20,000.

“This means so much. We offer free programming to all of our families,” Rush said. “We serve over 460 families in the Rochester GiGi’s and it’s all free programming. We are an educational center. We offer speech and literacy math handwriting and we also are a social group because our kids need that socialization.”

GiGi’s Playhouse offers all of its services to people of all ages with down syndrome free of charge.