For the past two decades our founder, Ivan Kilgore, has been confined in these cages on an average of 160 hours a week out of the 168 hours that make up a week. He’s gone years without touching or being touched by another human being (except when the guards put handcuffs on him to escort him from his cell). Often, he thinks about how this has impacted his social skills or anyone similarly situated for good or worse.

We look on Facebook and see people with their pets and how they treat them, how they groom them, pamper them and feed them some of the best dog food; then compare it to how we treat each other like shit as human beings. Look at the shit we’re feeding prisoners that’s literally “killing” them and how the guards have prodded them with their batons, handcuffs, pepper spray, non-lethal and lethal M-14 bullets. We often wonder how Ivan has kept from going crazy.

Often we think about how he is in a concrete cage 24 hours a day for weeks if not months on the end with no AC and it’s 110°. In the winter they freeze in the cells because there’s no heating system either.

Now we’re not saying all that to make you feel sorry for him. Not at all! We’re saying this so you will hopefully better understand why it is he (or anyone in his situation) would have a short temper for b.s., fake shit, and just shit period.

Despite it all, Ivan still has somehow managed to care about and respect people; to love and want to be loved; to build and be part of a community; to prosper; to grow as an individual and be a functional member of a family and community.

What we are trying to say here is, if Ivan can take all this negative shit on the chin and somehow kept his dignity and humanity in tact and channel it into something positive (e.g., founding and establishing this organization), then why can’t you?