Sacred Art Tattoo is offering tattoos at a slashed price in order to raise funds for the San Francisco Breast Cancer Walk in October.
From now until August 31, the tattoo shop is offering $20 pink-ribbon tattoos to anybody in an effort to raise money for the three-day, 60-mile walk.
The walk is a fundraiser event to raise money for Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, and for the National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund. It will take place in 15 major cities across the U.S. from July through November.
The first four people from Chico State who contact Larry Bassow, the program coordinator for Greek Life, will have their tattoos paid for, he said. This includes students, faculty and staff.
“I’m in this thing for $100,” said Bassow, who plans on getting tatted with the pink ribbon sometime this summer. “If they want to get the tattoo for breast cancer, I’ll buy theirs. I’ll go there with them and pay for it.”
Chico State alumni Juan Ortega, a tattoo artist at Sacred Art Tattoo, said that in order to enter into the three-day walk, which is Oct. 2 through 4, participant teams must raise $2,200.
Ortega is part of a team that is hoping to raise enough funds to participate in the walk, and he’s looking for more team members to join his effort.
On St. Patrick’s Day, Sacred Art Tattoo needled $20 shamrock tattoos into more than 100 paying customers — totaling more than $2,000, Ortega said.
“I was figuring, ‘Well shoot, if we can get some people to come in and get $20 ribbons and put all the proceeds towards the breast cancer fund, that would be awesome,’” he said.
The tattoo will be a small, pink, standard ribbon, said David Singletary, owner of Sacred Art Tattoo.
“When 9/11 happened, we did the same kind of ribbons, but it was like an American flag, and all the money went towards the charity for that,” Singletary said. “I think we raised like $1,100 for that.”
It’s important that Chico State does something on its campus that brings breast cancer awareness to people and looks to raise funds for people suffering from the disease, said Bassow, who is developing a breast cancer awareness effort to be launched in the spring of 2010.
Bassow plans for the effort to build on the Up ’til Dawn foundation of raising cancer awareness, he said.
“A lot of students are affected by breast cancer on our campus,” Bassow said. “A friend of mine, who I went to high school with, who also came to Chico for college — she’s almost 42 and she just got diagnosed with breast cancer.”
Bassow’s friend, Kelly Rosenheim, 41, was diagnosed with breast cancer five weeks ago. After having a partial mastectomy and breast reconstruction only two weeks after she learned of the diagnosis, the mother of 3-year-old twins is now recovering and will see her oncologist Thursday to find out what treatment plans doctors decide on.
“I feel good,” Rosenheim said. “It’s definitely sore. It’s very intrusive.”
Bassow contacted the 1990 graduate as soon as he learned about the tattoo fundraiser, and Rosenheim was excited to join her old friend in the effort, despite never considering getting a tattoo in the past, she said.
“Now I feel like, once all is said and done and I’ve healed and I’m feeling healthy, that I would get a tattoo and have people know that it’s something to look for, and be aware of,” Rosenheim said.
Annie Goodman can be reached at
agoodman@theorion.com
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