Support an 80‑Year‑Old Author
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Help Us Get Through the Winter: Keeping JR Warm and Our Studio Alive
My name is Satom Chhim, founder of Paladin Studio Production and partner to JR Friend, an 80‑year‑old author who has spent his entire life writing stories that deserves to be read.
We met at the Salvation Army in September of 2025. He was robbed in Texas after crossing the border from Mexico. He spent over 20 years teaching and running an animal shelter in Mexico. He left it all behind when his wife died and was ready to return home.
He ended up in Seattle instead.
By January, he left the shelter. I rented an art studio for JR to continue writing in a healthier environment.
Then in June, we came up to Canada for a sudden family emergency — the kind that pulls you across borders overnight. We expected to return home quickly, but instead he got stuck.
Everything happened fast. Too fast. I returned home, sold everything, and left my job in Seattle — a stable income, a predictable life — to join him in Canada. Not because it was financially wise. Because when the person you love is 80 years old, alone on less than $1,000 a month, with a mind still full of books. No way love will allow me to abandon him.
I didn’t have time to save what I wanted. I didn’t have time to prepare our van for the winter. We made a plan: my savings plus his small pension would carry us until GIS arrived.
Right now, we are living in a van.
Why We’re Asking for Help
JR qualifies for the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS), which would bring us to a survivable level. We applied in June. For months, we were told the application was processing.
In September, when our marriage certificate finally arrived and we went in to update JR’s file, we learned the truth:
The application had never been submitted.
We don't want to assume. We understand that mistakes and misunderstandings happen. But we were not negligent.
Our savings carried us exactly as planned until the moment we discovered the error. Now, because the application must be restarted, we are facing another 2–3 months of waiting while the winter is fast approaching.
Why I Can’t Just Step Away From the Studio
People may wonder why I can’t simply pause our studio work or get a job until GIS arrives. The truth is more complicated, and more human.
JR is 80 years old. He has 15 unpublished books waiting for me — stories he has carried for decades, stories he can only trust with me to help him bring to life. Publishing is not easy, and building a studio from scratch is even harder. It requires full focus, long hours, and constant momentum. If I step away now, these books stall. His universes stall. His legacy stalls.
And I don’t know how long I have with him.
Every day, I worry about JR’s health a little more. He is still writing, still dreaming, still building — but he is an 80‑year‑old senior living in a van. I am his partner, his caregiver, his editor, his publisher, and the person responsible for making sure his life’s work doesn’t disappear into a drawer.
I am also a full‑time dog mom to our Panda, who depends on me for everything.
Between JR’s age, his health, the studio, the van, the winter, and the legal reality that I cannot work in Canada, my days are already full. Not with avoidance — with responsibility.
This fundraiser isn’t about avoiding work. It’s about protecting JR’s health, protecting his legacy, and keeping our studio alive during a bureaucratic delay we did not cause.
What $5,000 Covers
Your support gives us the breathing room to survive until GIS arrives.
A winter RV park spot with power hookup
Heat, electricity, and safety when temperatures drop.
Groceries and daily living costs
We can survive on $2,000/month.
Paladin Studio operations
Inventory, printing, and production so our work continues.
Stability
The ability to make decisions from a place of clarity, not crisis.
$5,000 gives us roughly 2–3 months — the exact window we need.
What We’re Building
Paladin Studio Production is an independent publishing studio and the creative home of JR’s work — westerns, science fiction, murder mysteries, legacy, and children’s fantasy across five fictional universes, each tied to a real social cause.
It is structured as a perpetual purpose corporation:
It cannot be sold, dissolved, or inherited for personal gain.
It exists to serve its mission, permanently.
JR was born in 1946. At twelve, he watched his mother die in a house fire and made the choice to save his baby brother. He stole food so his siblings could eat. He learned responsibility before he could name it.
Now, at 80, he is doing the one thing that has always steadied him: writing.
Our books are in the store. Our membership plans are live. Our blogs and newsletters are active. We are raising our first film project while pitching two books for film adaptation. We are not waiting to be rescued — we are building in the middle of a hard season, and we are asking for a bridge to get through it.
What Your Support Means
It means JR is warm this winter.
It means our studio — our purpose — does not collapse under the weight of a bureaucratic error we did not cause.
It means two people who chose each other across borders, across an age gap, across every raised eyebrow, get to keep building the thing they came here to build.
If you cannot give, sharing this page costs nothing and means everything.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for caring.
Thank you for helping us get through this winter.
— Satom Chhim
Founder, Paladin Studio Production
Organizer
