When you get a haircut at one of the more than 1,200 Sport Clips across the country, you can “help a hero” at the same time by donating to the company’s Help A Hero program now through November 11, Veterans Day. Over the next four weeks, Sport Clips’ locations nationwide will have a collective goal of raising $600,000 for their annual fundraising program that provides scholarship money to veterans. Since 2007, the company has partnered with the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) to support service members, and last year, created the “Sport Clips Help A Hero Scholarship” program to help service members and veterans in the next chapter of their lives. Each scholarship provides up to $5,000 of assistance to those who are pursuing an education at post-secondary institutions, including trade schools.
Donations to Help A Hero will be collected in-store and at local fundraising events through November 11. In addition, Sport Clips will hold “The Biggest Haircut Day of the Year” on Veterans Day, when each store will donate a dollar from every haircut service to the VFW-administered scholarship program.
“Sport Clips team members, partners and our clients have already made a positive difference in the lives of more than 130 veterans by helping fund their education through Help A Hero scholarships. We’re hoping to award even more scholarships in the year ahead, and anyone can help — it’s as easy as getting a haircut,” says Sport Clips Founder and CEO Gordon Logan, a U.S. Air Force veteran and lifetime member of the VFW.
“Thousands of U.S. service members returning home from the front lines still face an unstable economy,” says VFW Commander-in-Chief John Stroud, a graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “Together with Sport Clips, the VFW remains committed to providing our service members and veterans with the tools they need to reach their educational goals and successfully transition back into civilian life. The Help A Hero Scholarship has proven to be vital to those efforts.”
Veteran recipient James Robak says of his Sport Clips Help A Hero Scholarship, “It will help out immensely since my GI Bill has been exhausted, and I still have a year left in my dietetics program. As a father of four, with ages spanning 14, 8, 7 and nearly 2; a wife that works full-time; and me being a full-time student; this couldn’t have been a bigger blessing. It will really help take the edge off of the financial burden that a higher education carries, along with the benefits for a brighter future.”
Sport Clips is the official haircutter of the VFW, and its Help A Hero campaign is just one of the many ways it supports active-duty military and veterans. To find out more, visit your local Sport Clips or SportClips.com.