At Spark Project Collective, you can get a professional tattoo of your favorite pet starting at $50, and you can write off half of the fee on your taxes.

Unlike other tattoo parlors in Tucson and, frankly, the country, Spark Project Collective is a nonprofit.

Your fee is a donation, and from that donation, Spark will pay it forward, giving half of what it brings in from tattoos and piercings back into the community. The collective donates to  help children and underprivileged families.

While you can get some incredible body artwork at the shop, Spark’s primary mission is to train future tattoo artists. 

Spark Project is designed as a teaching program for young people trying to find their way in life. They could be fresh out of high school, or coming off of a 9-to-5 desk job and trying to find more purpose or new direction. 

The training program teaches apprentices to tattoo and/or pierce, as well as how to successfully start and run their own business. 

Apprentices can spend as long as five years with Spark. Many then go out on and start their own shop.

Taylor Morales has been piercing for six years and has been at Spark Project as a piercer for about a year and a half. She started her tattoo apprenticeship about five months ago. 

Morales joined the Spark Project team shortly after her mother and grandfather died.

“It changed my life,” she said. “Working here, I’ve moved,  I’ve gotten a house, I’m adopting my brother. It’s just been a lot more stable than when I first started.” 

Pablo Orduño, one of the newer Spark tattoo apprentices, has been there for eight months.

“The fact that it’s a tattoo shop that does so much for its community was very appealing and is so rare,” he said.

As part of its non-profit status and its community-minded mandate, every year Spark and its employees donate their time volunteering for events including clothing and toy drives.

Spark Project, for Orduño, is the perfect combination of doing what you love for work while helping your community at the same time.

 “I love working for a nonprofit because I get to tattoo, which I really enjoy, and then also get to help at events and have all these different and new experiences,” he said.

Not only is Spark Project changing the lives of the community, but the lives of their artists as well.

As a former trucker, Orduño said Spark “has given me a place to look forward to working everyday and not dread it.”

“It’s been a place I’ve made friends who have made it feel like a home and that means a lot coming from trucking, where you spend a lot of time on your own,” he said. 

Tattoo artist Jena Haro has been at Spark Project since 2020. She started at the front desk and was there for a few months before beginning the apprenticeship. 

Haro’s way to give back to the community has been working with Morales to offer free weekly “Dungeons and Dragons” nights.

Haro said the weekly event offers “a safe space to play and meet new people” without the intimation that sometimes comes in “Dungeons and Dragons” leagues. 

“It’s hard to find somewhere to be your normal, weird self,” she said. 

Haro’s kids are also involved in Spark’s community service outreach. She said her son, who just turned 10, “wanted to help kids and get rid of his old toys” through Spark’s Kids Giving program. The year-old program allows kids to trade their toys with other kids and develop social skills, according to Haro.

Spark Project is hosting the prom night fundraiser “The Fairy Masquerade Charity Ball” from 6-11 p.m. Jan. 25, at Casino Del Sol, 5655 W. Valencia Road. Tickets are $150, $250 for couples through sparkprojectcollective.com (https://www.sparkprojectcollective.com/). 

Proceeds will go towards the Spark Project’s art, vision board and business training program, according to owner Johnny Vasquez. 

Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.