WAOA/Melbourne, FL's Tony Zazza Sends Deserving Families On Jingle Jet

Spreading Holiday Cheer

CUMULUS MEDIA Top 40 WAOA (WA1A)/MELBOURNE, FL morning host TONY ZAZZA, also heard on sister Top 40 WZNS (Z96)/DESTIN, FL and WABD/MOBILE, teamed up with ELITE AIRWAYS to deliver a CHRISTMAS surprise to deserving families with his annual Jingle Jet promotion.

ZAZZA, Founder and President of the Board of Directors for the non-profit ZAZZA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION  created and produced Jingle Jet from DALLAS, TX, for a number of years and has been doing it from FLORIDA since 2015. "Being able to bring our incredible listeners and partners together to give these families a day to escape the heartache and stress is just incredible," ZAZZA said.

In pre-COVID years, Jingle Jet families would be picked up by a limousine and delivered to the airport, where they are greeted with a red-carpet arrival, and given all kinds of holiday swag. They are served a delicious breakfast and write letters to SANTA all before boarding the plane for a magical flight (a real 30-minute flight) to 'The North Pole' ... a hangar that has been converted to a Winter Wonderland, complete with SANTA & MRS. CLAUS, face painters, and snowmen. Each family is also presented with their own CHRISTMAS tree, gifts from their needs and wants list and holiday trimmings. The families chosen each year are nominated by family members and friends who send submissions through the ZAZZA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION website.

This year, things were different. As ZAZZA recalled, "In a year when everything was being cancelled, our community needed us more than ever and there was no way Jingle Jet wasn’t going to happen."

If the families couldn't travel to the North Pole, maybe SANTA could come to them? In this video, ZAZZA details SANTA’s arrival with his elves as they headed out in his motorcade of limos to deliver the full CHRISTMAS set up to this year's selected families over the course of a week. 

Stories from this year's families included those who were celebrating without loved ones, suffering job loss, and some fighting the fight of their lives.

ZAZZA said, “We’ve all had a rough year, but take the pandemic and then add the hardships these families have faced, and they needed hope more than ever. Being able to see their faces light up as they walked out of their homes to see the magic that awaited them in their yards and driveways was proof that hope took flight once again."

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