When Linda and Craig Suter of Brighton came across a post in a local Facebook group about someone vandalizing the Michigan War Dog Memorial, the Big Frog Custom T-Shirts & More franchisees reached out to the company to see about doing a Big Frog T-shirt fundraiser.
The Michigan War Dog Memorial, located at 25805 Milford Road in South Lyon, is one of the few for military working dogs nationwide. Leaders of the The Michigan War Dog Memorial Inc., the organization that supports the development and maintenance of the site itself, were looking to invest in a surveillance system.
“(The fundraiser) was about a week or two long, but for that period we donated 100% of the proceeds to the memorial,” Linda Suter said. “It ended up being around $1,000, and that really cemented our relationship with them.”
Now, six years later, the couple continues to produce all the Michigan War Dog Memorial’s merchandise and donates half of every purchase back to the organization.
“They are very near and dear to us,” Linda Suter said. “They’ve become true friends. It’s such an amazing organization.”
Handlers can bring their military working dogs to the memorial for an official burial ceremony, complete with military honors. Rather than a 21-gun salute, the organization has a seven-dog “howling team” that howls for 21 seconds to provide each military working dog a proper send-off. Of the 73 burials conducted by Michigan War Dog Memorial, Big Frog Brighton has fully funded nearly a dozen of them through its fundraising efforts.
In addition to the ceremonies conducted nearly every weekend throughout the summer, Michigan War Dog Memorial has also created a Path of Honor and a memorial wall reminiscent of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The Suters continue to host an online store as the sole merchandise supplier for the memorial, and they continue to donate 50% of each sale back to the organization for its continued development. To date, they have donated nearly $10,000, and these contributions have played a major role in supporting the memorial’s continued services.
“They recently started offering burial ceremonies for service horses; that’s just another way the memorial has grown by leaps and bounds,” Craig Suter said.
“We didn’t know, in the beginning, how this was going to grow or blossom. It was just so close to our hearts,” Linda Suter said. “We’re a small part of it, but it does make us feel good. Every time we see something new that they’re doing, we know that we’re contributing a little bit to making that happen.”
The Suters said that when they began their franchise search, they were looking for something that would empower them to give back to their community. Throughout the discovery process with Big Frog Custom T-Shirts & More, they could see how the company’s philanthropic priorities aligned with their own.
