Traverse City Business Replaces Stolen MSP Recruiting Tent

The Michigan State Police recruiting tent that was stolen earlier this week – has been replaced by a Traverse City business.

. Part of it was caught on a nearby security camera, and State Police say they have already identified suspects with help from the public. But the theft left them without a highly visible presence downtown during the Cherry Festival, until now.

TentCraft s – and their team went to work. Friday they donated it to State Police near the Open Space.

TentCraft Content Marketing and PR Manager Andrew Dodson says, “We said ‘how quickly can we do it?’ and we manufactured it in a day. There’s probably about, more than a dozen people that went into handcrafting it. We got to deliver it this morning so they can continue their recruitment efforts this weekend.” Dodson says it was a logical idea. “I have Google Alerts set up for it, for tent-related news. We saw it. It was all over the news this week. So it was like right away, it was a no-brainer. It took us about five minutes to decide that we can help our State Police post out here, and we can get them a new tent.”

Michigan State Police Trooper Taylor Jukanovich says, “You know the community backs you, but seeing stuff like this really makes your job that much better. Knowing the community is here, they care, they’re watching the news. Then to have a company go to such an effort… is pretty amazing.”

Trooper Jukanovich says it also makes their job easier. “(It’s a) huge difference. We were just a table yesterday. No clouds in the sky. Sun beating down on us. Everybody’s walking past… we (didn’t) have the visibility. But now you can see it from across the street so it’s great.”