Tattoos for Charity

A tattoo artist in Smithville is putting his talents toward charity for the 8th year in a row.

Doug Newton owner of Hellbender Vintage Tattoos has raised over $50 000 to date for various charities.

This year he’s focusing on mental health awareness, particularly around the semicolon project.

It began in 2013 and has exploded. The semicolon symbolizes that the person had a choice to end their story, but kept going. Over the years it has come to represent not just suicide awareness, but also resilience in the face of mental illness.

During the month of April, Newton is doing semicolon tattoos for $25. All the proceeds going directly to Pathstone mental health in St. Catharines and the Canadian mental health association in Hamilton.