Inmate Robert Bigelow, left, walks out onto a thoroughfare between prison buildings with mentor J.D. Evans, Lawrence, at the Lansing Correctional Facility. Bigelow, who was recently released from the correctional facility, received regular visits from Evans in preparation for his release.

After spending nearly 30 years of his life in prison, Robert Bigelow was looking at time on the other side — freedom.

On a Wednesday morning, two weeks before his release, Bigelow and his mentor, J.D. Evans, sat in a conference room at the Lansing Correctional Facility and talked about what would happen during his first day out.

Evans would pick him up. Bigelow would go out for breakfast, smoke a cigarette and head to Topeka, where he would be placed in a reintegration housing program.

“We’ll make it,” Evans said toward the end of the conversation. He quickly corrected himself. “You’ll make it,” he said.

For the past three months, Bigelow, 48, and Evans, 55, have been meeting weekly as part of a mentor program to match offenders with volunteers. Before release, the two participants discuss how to adjust to life outside prison. After release, the offenders can call on the mentors for car rides, problem solving and moral support.

Evans was connected to Bigelow after he answered a call for help that program director Christina Wagner made to a recovery program hot line. Evans, who lives in Lawrence, just happened to answer the phone that day. Supporting people like Bigelow helps Evans hold on to his six years of sobriety.

“Had I been in the right situation, I could be in here and I would like to know there is somebody who could be there for me,” Evans said. “We can only keep what we have by giving it away.”

Bigelow, who was serving time for aggravated robbery and subsequent parole violations, was apprehensive about his release. The last time he was paroled, it took just two and a half months before he was in trouble with the law.

“People getting out of prison — not all, but some — ain’t got a place to go, ain’t got no friends or family out there. And I am one of them. And all the friends I did have out there were criminals, alcoholics and drug addicts,” he said. “So it’s kind of comforting to know I got a friend that I have never had, that has been clean and sober, that is willing to lend me that support when I need it.”

In 1998, Bigelow took his last drink. In 2007, he smoked his last joint.

“To stay clean and sober, that will be No. 1. That will get me back in here quicker than anything else,” Bigelow said. “Because I can’t do this any more. I have done gave the Department of Corrections all I can take.”