There's a New Day Coming. You can help.

At the end of June 2020, I was laid off by my former employer because of the COVID-19 crisis. Over the past year-and-a-half, I planned to return to that employer when the opportunity opened. Unfortunately, a year-and-a-half was too long to wait, financially speaking, to find I would not be returning to my former work. After more than 15 years in the same place, it was time for something new.

As many of you know, I will be transitioning directly into professional tour guiding. Unfortunately, that transition will not happen as fast as I'd like and leaves me in a 45-60 day cash crisis. I had planned on attempting to crowdfund the start of my new company, Andy Tours, but, to be honest, this crisis is more personal than that.

My name is Andy Bittner and I am asking for your help. In the next 30 days, I need to obtain my Washington D.C. Tour Guide license, keep my phone functioning, start training for my work with World Strides, and keep fuel in the car, or this is going to be a particularly hard transition. Beyond that, all funds raised here will go directly into other new business expenses, such as securing domain names, launching my blog, and membership in the Guild of Professional Tour Guides of Washington D.C.

When I was first considering this fundraiser, as an exercise in crowdfunding for my new business, it was my intention to offer a series of premiums. Now that this is a cry for help, I will be auctioning the current inventories of my book (signed on request), my photographic art, and, maybe, some really cool skateboarding collectibles on eBay and offering one premium for donations here. Anyone who donates to this fundraiser and leaves their name will be entitled to a lifetime 10% discount on all of my products, i.e. touring, books, photography, art, etc. I will post more information on the eBay auctions once they have begun.

Thank you for reading this far. This is not an easy moment for me and more than a little embarrassing, but I'll get by with a little help from my friends.