East River Tattoo (1047 Manhattan Ave) will be hosting a charity event for Threads for Teens on Saturday, July 27th from 10am-1pm.
Raf Delalande (guest artist who just arrived yesterday from France!), Rob Banks and Rachel Hauer will be tattooing their own flash pieces ranging from $50 ‘charms’ to $150 flowers/other stuff and donating the proceeds to Threads for Teens from 10am to 1pm.
Duke Riley’s Project Manager Kitty Joe, an awesome Greenpointer, wrote in to let us know about this charity that her niece Allyson Ahlstrom started in 2011 when she was 14. Allyson runs a boutique in Windsor, California that welcomes teens in foster care and cases of extreme poverty to ‘shop’ for free in an upscale boutique. The project started out simply to satisfy 10 hours of required community service through her school. After graduating from high school in May, she outfitted a 62′ trailer as a mobile boutique and is currently on the third leg of her 48 state tour of the country, making daily stops in cities to distribute clothing to deserving teens recommended by social agencies.
Allyson almost skipped New York City, as it’s been the only city to discourage the tour based on fees for Street Activity Permit, Over-dimensional Vehicle Permits and special insurance certificates.
Kitty Joe felt sad that underprivileged girls in New York should be left out of this opportunity simply because they live in this difficult and expensive metropolis.
For this reason, East River Tattoo is hosting the Brooklyn stop of the tour, handling the permitting as well as serving refreshments to the teens. We will be accepting donations to offset the cost of the permitting, as well as donating the proceeds from all t shirt sales that day to Threads for Teens.
See you there, Greenpoint!