Sport Clips Haircuts announced today it has extended its partnership agreement with Darlington Raceway to sponsor the NASCAR Nationwide Series VFW Sport Clips Help A Hero 200 through the 2016 season.
The agreement ensures that Sport Clips and Darlington Raceway will continue to build on an already strong foundation started in 2012. The VFW Sport Clips Help A Hero 200 is slated to run under the lights at the track Too Tough to Tame on April 11, 2014.
“Sport Clips has been a fantastic partner and we are honored it is going to continue its relationship with Darlington Raceway for the next three years,” Darlington Raceway President Chip Wile said. “We are proud that this great partner views Darlington Raceway as a valuable platform to increase awareness of its national veterans-support programs. Today’s announcement shows the strength of the relationship and our continued commitment to fostering meaningful lasting partnerships.”
Sport Clips will continue to use its NASCAR partnership to raise awareness about the struggles many military families are facing and the VFW’s mission to support active-duty military, veterans and their families.
As the “Official Haircutter” of the VFW, Sport Clips has donated more than $2 million to the organization through its annual “Help A Hero” campaign, which was established in 2007. Since their first contribution of more than $80,000, Sport Clips’ donations have increased annually. Earlier this year, Sport Clips made its most recent, and largest, donation of more than $520,000, benefiting the new VFW-administered “Sport Clips Help A Hero Scholarship” program. The donations were collected by Sport Clips stylists, managers, and owners in-store and in their communities from October 14, 2013 to Veterans Day, November 11, 2013.
Through this recent contribution, Sport Clips and the VFW provided 43 spring semester scholarships and expect to provide more than 60 additional scholarships, of up to $5,000, for the fall 2014 semester. Eligible service members can now apply through April 30 at www.VFW.org/scholarship. The company also continues to support phone calls home for deployed and hospitalized service members through the VFW’s Operation Uplink™ Free Call Days. To learn more about Help A Hero, visit www.sportclips.com/hero.
Darlington Raceway is also continuing its efforts to assist with Sport Clips’ Help A Hero platform. During the week of Tuesday, February 25 to Monday, March 3, the track will donate $2 for every ticket sold to the Help A Hero campaign. The $2 donation will be made on tickets purchased for both the Bojangles’ Southern 500 and VFW Sport Clips Help A Hero 200.
“Sport Clips looks forward to continuing our partnership with Darlington Raceway and the VFW in honor of our nation’s heroes,” said Sport Clips CEO and Founder Gordon Logan, a U.S. Air Force veteran and lifetime member of the VFW. “We support our service members while they serve overseas through phone calls home, and now, we’re proud to also support them in the next chapter of their lives through scholarships. I am grateful to our stores, clients, and partners, like Darlington Raceway, who have allowed Sport Clips to grow in our support of the VFW and their important work.”
Founded in 1899, the VFW is America’s largest major combat veterans’ organization. The VFW offers several assistance programs to lessen the burden on active-duty military, veterans and their families; offers counsel and assistance to military veterans to navigate VA entitlement and disability claims; and actively lobbies Congress and the administration on issues that impact the lives of our nation’s veterans.
“As an organization comprised of combat veterans, the VFW is truly grateful for the continued effort of Sport Clips and Darlington Raceway in helping support those who’ve sacrificed so much for all of us,” said VFW National Commander William A. Thien
Darlington Raceway PR
