Restaurant chain Raising Cane’s Ohio has entered into a partnership with the Ohio High School Athletic Association to provide funding for student-athlete scholarship programs and support for postseason tournaments. With 36 locations across Ohio, Raising Cane’s is well known for its chicken finger meals and customer satisfaction.

The three-year partnership will kick off Thursday, April 30, when all Raising Cane’s restaurants across Ohio will donate 15 percent of sales from 4 p.m. to close to the OHSAA. All sales will be made at the drive-thru due to the current coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic that cancelled the OHSAA’s winter state tournaments of wrestling, ice hockey and basketball along with all spring sports.

The annual OHSAA scholar-athlete scholarship program, which annually provides more than $175,000 to college-bound seniors, had to be cancelled this spring due in part to the OHSAA’s lack of revenue from the tournaments.

“We cannot begin to thank Raising Cane’s enough for stepping up during these unprecedented times to help give back to the student-athletes across Ohio,” said Jerry Snodgrass, executive director of the OHSAA. “Our mission at the OHSAA begins with ‘to serve’ and we will be able to continue to do just that with partners like Raising Cane’s, who are committed to both education and active lifestyles. We get to see firsthand how those two directly impact communities, schools and students across Ohio. We’re really excited to kick off this three-year partnership and forge what will be a special effort to positively impact students statewide.”

Currently Raising Canes operates in Central, Northeast and Southwest Ohio.

“Active lifestyle and education are two of our pillars of community involvement, when we found out various programming and scholarships could be lessened or taken away due to cancellations of championships from the COVID-19 pandemic, we immediately reached out to the OHSAA to see how we could help,” said Matt Salts, director of marketing at Raising Cane’s Ohio. “We’re committed to team up with the OHSAA to help provide support for the next three years to help keep these key programs available to athletes across the state of Ohio.”

Information received from the OHSAA.