By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
For the ninth year, BroadWing Tattoos and Body Piercing is devoting Veterans Day, Monday, Nov. 11, to raising money to help care for veterans.
The Tattoo Marathon is a way for the owner Tyler Brott to honor his father.
Jax Foster, office manager and assistant piercer, said Brott started doing the tattoo and piercing marathon shortly after his father David D Brott, a Vietnam War veteran, died in 2014. He died of lung cancer linked to exposure to Agent Orange.
The marathon runs from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at the shop at 125 N. Main in downtown Bowling Green. The shop can be reached at (419) 352-4343.
Brott’s sister Prudy Brott, owner of Sunset Bistro, will be providing free food at the marathon.
For a $150 donation, all of which will go to the VA Ann Arbor Health Center, participants will have an hour-long appointment to get a small custom tattoo as well as after care and a t-shirt.
The shop requests designs be provided about two weeks ahead of the day, so the artists can plan.
“You can get whatever you want,” Foster said.
The three artists will work all day and there are some walk-in slots. Piercings will also be available on a walk-in basis throughout the day.
The marathon attracts a variety of customers, including veterans and their families as well as some of the shop’s regular customers. Some people come every year, they said.
“We sit down as a whole shop and decide where that money goes,” Foster said. The marathon raised $7,000 last year, and a total of more than $50,000, since it began. That money has helped pay for mental health care, transportation, and medical care for area veterans.
