BREATHE LIFE INTO AN OLD DREAM!

Help Bill Kissinger build his home and workshop!

After 47 years in prison, Bill won a new trial and was released. Having gone to Angola penitentiary at age 24 when Richard Nixon was president, he emerged from prison in 2023 at age 71 with $10, a bus ticket and nowhere to go. He applied for and received a new driver’s license and $1,000 per month in social security benefits. With such low income, he could not afford even the least expensive rented room while his carceral record disqualified him from all subsidized housing. Bill spent several months in a room he rented from the Department of Corrections while mentoring inmates until friends in Florida offered him a temporary place to stay.

Bill arrived in Florida in January of 2023 and is working on raising funds to remodel a live-in workshop on his friends’ property into a place where he can live and work. In prison, Bill taught himself fine arts and created many masterpieces. Photos of some of his work are enclosed. He is hoping to remodel the old workshop he has been offered. It is very basic and will need new doors and windows, insulation, drywall and tools of his craft. Bill had to leave all his tools behind in prison and must replace them to work as an artist again. A basic remodeling of the workshop and acquisition of tools to get started so he can create more artwork is estimated to cost around $5,000. It means a lot to Bill to become self-sufficient and provide his fine art to more people and be able to secure his existence in his soon-to-be workshop and be productive making fine art again.