The William Petersen Appreciation Page - www.billypetersen.com

This Fundraiser ran through August – October 2008.  The monies received were donated in Billy’s name to the American Cancer Society and Victory Gardens Theater.  This Fundraiser was organized by The WPAP as a congratulations gift to Billy for receiving a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (which he received on February 3rd 2009).

We raised a total of $3,000 that was split equally between the two organizations.

Billy sent us a kind thank you note for the charity work that was undertaken in his name and thanked everyone who took part.  We also received two very nice letters from the American Cancer Society and Victory Gardens Theater which you can read in The Gallery.

Details of this Fundraiser are below.

As we are sure many of you are now aware, Billy is going to be a recipient of a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  You can read the official press release here at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

We immediately knew that a lot of his fans would like to acknowledge the fact that he would be receiving a Star.   So to congratulate Billy in joining the many talented stars on The Walk of Fame and to show him how proud we and his fellow fans are of this achievement, The WPAP has organized a Charity Fundraising Event as a gift to Billy from his fans.   ALL funds received will be donated to a charity and non-profit organization in the name of “William Petersen”.

We have set up a donation account with Paypal to ensure as much security as possible for your transactions.  However, you do not need to have a paypal account to participate, instructions on the donation pages are fairly clear.

Full details of the fundraiser are below.

• How to be involved in the Fundraiser
• Buy Raffle Tickets/Make a Donation
• Fundraising Dates and Winner Announcements
• Information about the Charity and Non-Profit Organization
• Our Donation Goals
• The Prizes
• What Billy will receive

How to be involved in the Fundraiser

There are two options in how you can be involved in the Fundraiser.
a)       Buy Raffle Tickets
b)       Make a Non Raffle Ticket Donation

We will explain each below.

Raffle Tickets

We have three raffles you can enter. You will be able to win “Theatre” MemoraBILLYa 🙂 “Movie” MemoraBILLYa as well as 2 tickets to Billy’s play at Victory Gardens Theater, Chicago next July.

Several of the items we are donating cannot be found in our gallery or on the website. Many of the items are extremely rare and hard to come by.

A full list of the prizes can be found further down this page.

Please take care when entering in your email address.   If it is wrong we will not be able to contact you to let you know if you have won.

Non Raffle Ticket Donation

Obviously some of you may not be interested in the prizes we have to offer, but you may still want to be a part of the Congratulations Gift by having your name on the Donation Certificates that will be given to Billy. Therefore, we also have the option for anyone who just wishes to donate, rather than be entered into the prize draw.

If you would like to remain anonymous and do not want your name to go on the list of Donors please do make this clear in the available box when you make your donations.

Buy Raffle Tickets/Make a Donation

Click the icon below to make a donation to have your name put on the list of donors to be given to Billy.

WE ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING DONATIONS

RAFFLE TICKETS NO LONGER AVAILABLE – PRIZE DRAW OCTOBER 4TH

VIEW THE PRIZE DRAW VIDEO HERE

We are not limiting the number of tickets you can buy, but to break up your raffle ticket numbers, if you plan to buy many, you may want to donate several times.

If you want to enter all the raffles, you will have to donate to each one separately.

Upon receipt of your raffle ticket purchases, you will receive an email from The WPAP within 24 hours informing you of your raffle ticket number(s) i.e. Theater 0001 – 0005/Movie 0001-0005.  The WPAP will then add your name and the country you are from to the list of donors. If you have not received an email from us within 48 please check you spam folder as it may have slipped in there, we will not be using the standard website address, it will vary depending on the raffle.

If you prefer to remain anonymous, please state this in the “add special instructions to seller” box, this is located on the left side of the screen, just below the title of the fundraiser.

Fundraising Dates and Winner Announcements

We are now accepting donations until October  31st 2008 for those who would like their name to go on the donation certificates.

Raffle Tickets will be available to buy throughout the month of September 2008 for the MemoraBILLYa raffles, and Raffle Tickets for the Theater Tickets go on sale on August 17th 2008.   Buying raffle tickets will automatically put your name on the list of donors.

The Raffle Ticket Draw will take place on Sunday, October 4th 2008 via a live web stream (link to be provided soon), followed by announcements of the winning ticket numbers on the main website on our latest news page later that same day (winners names will remain anonymous).    The WPAP will contact the winners via email after the prize draw.   The prizes will be posted off shortly thereafter.

A total figure for all the donations will be announced the first week of November and checks sent off as soon as possible.

Information about the Charity and Non-Profit Organization

As the whole point of this fundraising project is to raise money to be donated in Billy’s name as a congratulations gift we wanted to pick a charity(s) that would mean a great deal to him and remain important to us and our fellow fans as well.

We have chosen to donate to the American Cancer Society.

Many of you may remember several articles back in the summer of 2005 where Billy had attended a local “Relay for Life” event in Chicago with his sister, who is a Cancer survivor. He has been involved several times in events supporting this cause. We ourselves feel that this is something that affects us all, almost everyone knows someone who has been diagnosed with cancer and the pain and suffering it brings.  If we can help the ACS just a little bit with this fundraising event, it’s worth it.

As well as donating to the above, we wanted to donate to another non-profit organization that holds a special place in Billy’s heart, The Victory Gardens Theatre.

Billy started taking acting classes at the Victory Gardens Training Centre over 30 years ago. He appeared in his first starring role at this theatre back in 1978, playing the lead in William J. Norris’ Dillinger, and of course earning his Equity Card.

Billy’s loyalty to this theatre has remained strong over the years.   In 1998 he became an Associate Artist of the theatre, also performing in Jeffrey Sweet’s Flyovers that year with Marc Vann (who plays Ecklie on CSI) and Amy Morton (who will be directing him for a second time in A Dublin Carol at Steppenwolf later this year).  Back in 2006 he was the Honorary Chair at the Victory Gardens Gala, which was an event held for the official re-opening of the theatre in its new venue, The Biograph.   He also put money into the theatre for them to receive new “trap doors” at their new location. After 30 years, Billy and the theatre’s Artistic Director Dennis Zacek remain very good friends.

Therefore, with Billy returning to the Victory Gardens stage next summer, we thought it would mean a lot to him if we donated to this non-profit theatre as well as it has played such a big part in the start of his acting career.

All monies raised will be split equally between the above mentioned organizations.

At the end of the fundraising campaign, the WPAP as well as donating prizes, will donate all the proceeds from The WPAP Stores made since it began on top of the final figures, as well as round up the total to the nearest $100.

Our Donation Goals

We obviously want to raise as much as we can to donate to the causes above.  Our starting goal is to reach $1,000.   If we can donate $500 to each of the organizations we will be very pleased.   We feel if 100 people donate $10 each (or purchase 10 raffle tickets) this is a great start.   We will post regular announcements of how the fundraiser is going.   Any and all donations are welcome, it really doesn’t matter how much they are for.

The Prizes

Theatre Ticket Raffle Prize

As part of the Theatre MemoraBILLYa Raffle we do have a wonderful prize that has been kindly donated to us by The Victory Gardens Theatre (who we thank so much for their generosity).    If you enter this raffle you stand a chance at winning 2 tickets to the first preview night of Billy’s play at Victory Gardens on July 3rd 2009.    The tickets have been set aside in advance specifically for this raffle.    This really is a fantastic opportunity to see Billy perform in a brand spanking new play for the first time.  The performances may be rough and ready as this will be the actors first time performing the play in front of an audience, but that is part of the appeal about first previews, you will not be disappointed 🙂   What better way to start off the 4th July holiday in Chicago.

Theatre MemoraBILLYa Raffle Prizes

• An Original Dublin Carol Poster from The Trinity Rep.
• An Original Dublin Carol Programme from The Trinity Rep.
• 9 extremely rare 5×7 theater production photos (only 3 in our gallery – the rest will not be available on the site due to them being prizes).

Movie MemoraBILLYa Raffle Prizes

• Press Kits from Manhunter, Kiss the Sky, Cousins, Young Guns II, Fear, Hard Promises, Passed Away & To Live & Die in LA.
• Movie Promos from the above press kits as well as Long Gone, 12 Angry Men, Return to Lonesome Dove & Amazing Grace & Chuck.
• 5×7 Colour Movie Stills from Keep the Change, The Beast, Kiss the Sky, Hard Promises, The Contender, Cousins, Return to Lonesome Dove, 12 Angry Men & Young Guns II.
• On CD – Draft scripts from Manhunter and Hard Promises.

This package comprises a mixture of original and professionally copied material.

Photos of the prizes can be found here in The Gallery.

***  The winner will have to make your own travel and accommodation arrangements to Chicago for July 3rd 2009, so please make sure you are available to attend when entering this raffle.

The WPAP would like to give special thanks to The Victory Gardens Theatre for donating the two theatre tickets for our raffle.  We really can’t thank you enough.

What Billy will receive

We couldn’t do all this without Billy receiving something.   We wanted to keep it very simple.  Billy will receive two professional donation certificates as well as a list of everyone’s name and the country they are from who made a donation.  (We originally thought of framing the certificates, but have decided to put them in a display book instead as we can put the list of donators in right behind the certificates to keep everything together).

This will be delivered to him in the latter part of the year, with the contents of our other Fan Project, The WPAP Fan Letter Project 2008.