The Veterans of Foreign Affairs received a record breaking donation for its ‘Help A Hero’ Scholarship Program.
It provides scholarships for active duty service members and veterans wanting to pursue college and graduate degrees or vocational certifications.
It helps veterans such as scholarship recipient Jeffrey Martin who is in his fourth year in law school.
“We’re just grateful. Like I said, it’s hard to, for me, to get through law school with the PTSD. That’s really been the help, because that [PTSD] limits my career choices and what I can do,” Martin said. “But it’s really been a boost to us because rather than having to work full-time, while I going to law school, I’ve been able to focus on things, such as getting the service dog trained up and just healing myself after coming back from the war.”
Martin and his wife just welcomed their fourth child Sunday and said the scholarship has really been beneficial for him and his family.
“The scholarship is really helping us out, to be able to have her stay home with the kids and just survive off the income I get from the Air Force Reserves and the little bit that we get from the internship with the US EPA."
CEO of Sport Clips and U.S. Air Force veteran Gordon Logan said the partnership with VFW’s ‘Help A Hero’ started 10 years ago.
“Well 10 years ago we first started working with VFW, and we were raising funds for their operation line, providing free phone calls home from troops overseas in the hospitals,” Logan said.
Then in 2013 the goal of ‘Help A Hero’ switched gears a bit, focusing now on providing scholarships for active military personnel and veterans with up to $5,000 in scholarships with their career goals.
This year, Logan said the goal was to reach $1 million for the program.
“We set the goal for a million dollars this year, and we did that because we know that the commitment of our team, our franchises and our clients who are extremely supportive of our vets and this cause,” Logan said.
Leaders with VFW say they’ve awarded more than 700 scholarships since 2013.
Funds for this donation were raised through Sport Clips’ clients, product partner donations, and Sports Clips’ Veteran Day contributions of $1 per haircut service, which raised $110,000 this year.
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Rae Daniel can be reached at Rae.Daniel@KSHB.com.
