Sport Clips Haircuts Kicks off Effort to Help Heroes Call Home

Nation's leader in men's and boys' hair care teams up with VFW Operation Uplink™ to raise awareness and money to make calls home possible for American service members overseas

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Sport Clips

Oct 13, 2010, 10:11 ET

GEORGETOWN, Texas, Oct. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Beginning Sunday, October 17, over 700 Sport Clips stores will kick off the company's annual "Help A Hero" fundraising campaign supporting the Veterans of Foreign Wars' (VFW) Operation Uplink™ in their communities across the country. In its fourth year supporting Operation Uplink, a program that offers free call days for deployed and hospitalized American service members, Sport Clips hopes to raise $300,000. Donations to "Help A Hero" will be collected in-store, through individual store fundraising events, and online at SportClips.com through November 13. A key part of the effort will be "The Biggest Haircut Day of the Year" cut-a-thon on Veterans Day, Thursday, November 11, when the company will donate a dollar from every haircut service to the program.

"More than 344,508 connections with family and loved ones were made last year through the efforts of our team members and Clients. They've generously given their time, enthusiasm, and means to sponsor free call days on Christmas, New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Veterans Day," says Sport Clips founder and CEO Gordon Logan, a veteran and lifetime member of the VFW.

"Even with the drawdown in troops, military members still deployed and hospitalized tell us the calls home are so important to them," says Logan. "One of our own Sport Clips team members, Michele Taylor, personally benefitted from the effort last year." Taylor, the assistant manager at Sport Clips in Edmond, Oklahoma, received a call on Christmas day from her son, Army Specialist Terry Volmer, who was stationed in Afghanistan. Volmer learned the call was made possible through Sport Clips when he heard the recorded message that played prior to the connection. "They were able to talk for over an hour. She told us it was the call she had hoped for all day," he says.

"Since 2007, Sport Clips' amazing record of generosity has enabled them to sponsor numerous VFW Operation Uplink™ 'Free Call Days,' totaling 7,280,065 minutes worth of free calls home for soldiers and hospitalized veterans," says VFW National Commander-in-Chief Richard Eubank. "Their 'Help A Hero' campaign is a tremendous testament to their remarkable efforts toward demonstrating appreciation and gratitude to our nation's service members, veterans and their families. The VFW is deeply grateful to the Sport Clips family of managers and employees who understand the significant debt we all owe to America's defenders."

Sport Clips is now the VFW's largest single-donation free call day sponsor, having donated almost $500,000 to Operation Uplink since 2007. For more information, visit your local Sport Clips store or SportClips.com.

About Sport Clips

Sport Clips is headquartered in Georgetown, Texas and was established in 1995 by founder and CEO Gordon Logan. The franchise ranked in the top 100 overall and top 50 in growth for the sixth straight year in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Franchise 500" and in the top 50 in Dun & Bradstreet's AllBusiness.com "2010 AllBusiness AllStars." Sport Clips is the "Official Haircutter" of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and offers veterans preferential pricing on haircuts and franchises. Sport Clips is a proud sponsor of Joe Gibbs Racing's NASCAR driver, Joey Logano, and holds partnerships with several teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), and National Hockey League (NHL). For media resources and additional information on Sport Clips, visit SportClipsMedia.com. To learn about franchise opportunities click here, and for locations throughout the United States, visit SportClips.com.

SOURCE Sport Clips