Sport Clips Haircuts has a mission as a company to provide active-duty military, veterans and their families support while they serve and beyond. As a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, I have a personal desire to give back to those who serve our country and work to do so by supporting veterans’ causes through Sport Clips by serving on the VFW Foundation Board, as a member of the International Franchise Association’s VetFran Committee, and as Chairman of the VetFran Mentor Program.
To help veterans in their post-military career goals, we established the “Sport Clips Help A Hero Scholarship” program and accomplished the first step of that mission in January when we announced 43 scholarships we’ve funded for military veterans for the 2014 spring semester. Sport Clips franchised and company store locations across the nation raised over $500,000 in 2013 through our annual “Help A Hero” campaign, to fund phone calls home for service members overseas and in hospitals, and for the Veterans of Foreign Wars-administered scholarships. Through this half-million dollar contribution, Sport Clips and the VFW expect to provide more than 60 additional scholarships for the fall 2014 semester for which service members can now apply through April 30 at VFW.org/scholarship.
Since 2007, the Sport Clips’ Help A Hero campaign has supported the VFW’s Operation Uplink™ “Free Call Days,” making more than two million calls home possible for deployed and hospitalized U.S. service members. This past year was our first to expand the Help A Hero campaign to offer scholarships of up to $5,000 to active-duty military and veterans who are pursuing an education at post-secondary institutions, including trade schools.
Donations to Help A Hero were collected in stores and at local fundraising events in the fall of 2013 with efforts culminating November 11, Veterans Day, on Sport Clips’ “Biggest Haircut Day of the Year.” Stores donated a dollar from every haircut service to the scholarship program, and sponsors John Paul Mitchell Systems and Nioxin each contributed $10,000 to the effort.
Reading just one of our Help A Hero scholarship recipients’ thank you notes is all it takes to recognize the need for this type of support, and we were proud to have Seth Atchison, who served in the Navy, with us when we made our recent donation announcement. Seth is one of the Sport Clips Help A Hero Scholarship recipients and is using it to pursue his M.D. degree at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
Sport Clips continues to be a proud supporter of phone calls home through the VFW’s Operation Uplink, but we’re excited to be able to expand our focus to include scholarships, which will support our nation’s heroes and their families in the next chapter of their lives.
Sport Clips serves as the Official Haircutter of the VFW, and our Help A Hero campaign is just one of the many ways we support active-duty military and veterans. As a company we brought on board a Veterans Affairs Officer, Matt Deputy, USAFR, who spent eight years on active duty and continues to serve as a reservist. In his position, Deputy plays an integral role in supporting Sport Clips’ military-focused partnerships, such as those with the VFW, Wounded Warriors Family Support, Honor Flights for WWII veterans. Matt also serves as a liaison to veterans who are interested in Sport Clips as a franchise opportunity.
Sport Clips sponsored Wounded Warriors Family Support and its show car that traveled throughout the U.S. in 2013 fundraising for two specially equipped “smart homes” for wounded veterans and their families. Sport Clips also sponsored Ageless Aviation Dreams Foundation’s “Texas Tour,” which provided WWII veterans, many of whom live in long-term care facilities, with a flight of a lifetime in a WWII era Stearman bi-plane some of these veterans flew in their younger years. We have also supported the USO at Ft. Hood, The Patriot Foundation (assisting families of fallen Special Forces soldiers) and The Aleethia Foundation (dinners for Wounded Warriors and their families while undergoing rehab).
Our team has been an Honor Flight Austin sponsor, which has enabled many WWII Veterans to visit Washington DC to see the monuments in their honor. We also sponsor Heroes Night Out, VFW Post 8587 and American Legion Post 174. In addition, in 2012, my family and I made a major commitment of one million dollars over 10 years to support Central Texas non-profits, specifically to support work with veterans and children.
Along with Sport Clips’ military-friendly outreach, we also take care of our own through the Wayne McGlone Memorial Relief Fund. Wayne, an Air Force veteran, was a much loved Sport Clips Area Developer who passed away unexpectedly in 2012. We established a fund in his memory to support Sport Clips team members in need of financial assistance due to unforeseen emergencies and tragedies. Some of our first recipients were stylists who, along with their families, lost their homes to the Moore, Oklahoma tornado last year.
I flew C-130’s on active duty for several years in the and early 70s and flew in the reserves a couple of years after that. Many people didn’t appreciate the sacrifices made by our troops back then…when they came home, they weren’t really treated all that well in many cases. So, as founder and CEO of the largest provider of men’s and boys’ hair care, it’s important to me and to our company culture to give back to our military and our veterans as a way of saying “thank you” to them for the sacrifices they’ve made on our behalf.
Founder and CEO Gordon Logan is a pioneer of the unique sports-themed haircutting franchise, including the development of the Sport Clips All-Star haircutting systems, operating procedures, and marketing programs.
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Website: www.SportClips.com