Summary
My name is David J. Ores, but everyone just calls me Dr Dave. A native New Yorker, I graduated from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1985 and have been a medical doctor on the Lower East Side for over twenty years, serving the working poor and uninsured as a general practitioner. As part of my practice, I've been helping people who are serious about turning their lives—and those of their families—around by removing their visible prison & gang tattoos for free, so they can find gainful, improved employment. Right now, I need your help.
The Fresh Start Tattoo Removal Program has helped over a hundred people move on with their lives in the last few years, but I've hit a stumbling block: the laser tattoo removal machine broke in mid-2012. I need to raise $150,000 to buy a new one and pay for a five year service contract to keep it in working condition. I have dozens of people on my waiting list who are working very hard to stay out of crime, drugs, and prison, and need my and your help to become employable, support their families, and get their lives back on track. Your contribution will help me to buy a new laser tattoo removal machine and remove their visible tattoos and the immense stigma that goes with them. You will be helping me save many lives.
What We Need
The Revlite SI laser removes both black ink and red ink. It costs $87,000 + a five year service contract at $10,000 a year + thousands of dollars of assorted fees and taxes. I need $150,000 to buy a Revlite SI laser so I can get back to helping people. If there is any money left over from its purchase, I will put that towards buying an Accolade Alexandrite laser, which removes blue and green ink.
Please note: Fresh Start is an official NY State not-for-profit corporation and is just waiting to receive 5013c status approval from the IRS. In the meantime, all contributions will be accepted through Social Tees Animal Rescue Foundation, our neighbor and supporter, and will be tax deductible.
The Impact
Helping people who are doing their best to turn their lives around to stay out of jail, away from drugs, and to a point where they can be gainfully employed is the right thing to do. On a basic human level, you'll be helping people help themselves—this is NOT just a hand out. Fresh Start Tattoo Removal helps people finally get real, honest jobs, after years of outright rejection by the rest of society, which lets them support themselves and their families.
Many of the people we treat received their tattoos as teenagers who didn't know better, in gangs or in prison, without any hope that their lives could be different. It costs thousands of dollars to have these tattoos removed by laser, money that they just don't have. Offering that service for FREE does many things: 1. It makes removal actually possible. 2. It shows them people are willing to help them, if they are willing to help themselves 3. It gives them hope for a future which would be otherwise impossible for them and their loved ones. 4. And once they are employed, they rejoin society, supporting their families, giving back to their communities.
Financially, it costs society far less to extend a helping hand to these people than it is to just let them be—keeping people off of drugs and out of prison saves potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars PER person in a lifetime: —ourt costs, prison costs, ER trauma costs, police costs, and other hospital costs. It all adds up. Even if only one out of every twenty people we help gets back on track and changes the direction of their life, the project will be a big winner.
