The Unfiltered Heart Behind Social Santa

    There is an old, bitter irony in how the world operates: the people sitting behind clean mahogany desks making administrative policies are rarely the ones standing in the cold holding a crying child’s hand.

    Over the last few years, the heartbeat of my studio has quietly tied itself to a singular mission. Long before the camera starts clicking for Christmas portraits, the foundation is being poured for a project that means more to me than any gallery sale or corporate gig: Social Santa and the Patchwork Bears.

    The mission was simple, unfiltered, and deeply personal: get teddy bears into the hands of kids who are fighting battles no child should ever have to face. In hospital rooms on Christmas Eve. In crisis centers. In the hands of children clinging to their parents in waiting rooms where fear hangs thicker than the winter frost.

    Last January, that mission took a devastating hit. I was notified by Alberta Health Services that my presence—and my bears—would no longer be welcome in their facilities on Christmas Eve.

    The reason? Bureaucracy decided that the branding of my studio, specifically the boudoir photography that helps pay my bills, didn't fit their sterilized corporate image.

    Let's talk about that "branding" for a second. Earlier this year, I went through a complete rebranding process. We dropped the old Superman emblem and brought in an anchor and a bear. I worked closely with a friend and designer who knows my personal history and understands my mission better than almost anyone else. She wanted a way to take every element of my personal life, my side hustle, and my history, and weave it into one tangible logo. Deina Volks of D & R designs.

    There is more meaning in that new bear than I could ever explain to 99% of the population. But the beautiful part is, a kid receiving a bear doesn’t need to understand what every heart stands for, or what every single stitch means. All they need to see is a patchwork bear. All they need to see is kindness, color, joy, and happiness. They just need to feel the love behind it. That has been the entire point from day one.

    Now, as September rolls around and the chill in the air signals the coming season, the rumor mill has started turning again. Word through the grapevine has surfaced that the Sendero Centre—a place meant to offer refuge and healing to trauma survivors—may follow suit, shutting their doors to these bears for the exact same reason. Compounding that is the lingering frustration of watching management in past years fail to understand how these bears were meant to be given out in the first place, stripping away the intention and replacing it with detached policy.

    Let’s pull the curtain all the way back, because I have never hidden who I am, what I do, or how this work gets done.

    I am an independent artist and photographer in rural Alberta. I don’t have a multi-million-dollar government grant I can apply for. There is no corporate sponsor writing tax write-off cheques to bankroll thousands of dollars worth of plush bears. I don't have the capacity or the funds to hire an accountant and a lawyer to turn this into a massive, red-tape non-profit. I am a sole proprietor. I write off what I can, and I eat the cost of everything else. I do what I can, when I can, where I can.

    Every single bear that has ever been placed into a child’s arms was paid for through raw hustle. When Social Santa itself doesn’t generate enough revenue to cover the invoices, it is my photography clients whose session fees fill the gap.

    For a long time, it was my boudoir clients. I never hid the mission from the women who stepped in front of my lens. I would look them in the eye and tell them straight up: “A huge portion of the money you are paying me today is going directly into buying bears for kids in crisis.” They didn't run away. They booked because they believed in the humanity behind the lens.

    Since I stepped back from shooting boudoir, I had to find a new way to fuel this mission. That is when I took my lens to the dirt.

    I put myself out there in the rodeo world, getting carded with amateur associations across Alberta. I consciously chose to follow the Central Alberta Rodeo Association (CARA) and Bull Riders Canada (BRC) because I believe in who they are at their core.

    To me, the young men in BRC are the true rockstars of the sport. They are the salt of the earth, coming right out of high school, starting with nothing but whatever sponsorship they can scrape together and a little help from mom and dad. They bust their butts working Monday to Thursday just so they can hit the rodeo road Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, getting on enough animals to build the experience needed for the next level. That grit is the absolute epitome of western sports.

    And when I look at CARA, it pulls right at my heartstrings. Where else can you go and watch a team roping header and heeler made up of a husband and wife? A father and daughter? A grandpa and his grandchild? You can look behind the bucking chutes and see an entire family standing there, cheering on their kid as they climb onto a roughstock animal, supporting them whether they make the whistle or take a trip to the dirt. It is a true family environment.

    These are the people funding the bears now. The hardworking rodeo families, the gritty roughstock athletes, and the grassroots communities buying their photos and videos—they are the ones keeping this mission alive.

    But I have to be completely honest: as much as I love rodeo, am I making the same income out in the dirt as I was with boudoir? Heck no. Far from it. This year, I am taking a hit financially, but I understand that you have to start somewhere. I am willing to take that hit to build this foundation. Do I miss the boudoir income? Yes. But more than the money, I miss being able to look a woman—no matter her shape, size, or personality—in the eye and show her through my lens how beautiful, important, and valued she truly is. I miss helping them change their own personal perspective of themselves on a weekly basis.

    Losing the ability to do that every week is exactly why these self-published journal entries have become so important to me. I want people to see, hear, and understand what it is I see when I show up to an event. I know I am likely never going to make massive amounts of money at photography. It is something I do for the absolute love of it. I just want people to understand that I do all of this for a reason, a purpose, and a passion.

    This reality also means my social media presence has to change. It is getting exhausting trying to keep up with multiple platforms, making sure the right thing is posted in the right place at the right time. Moving forward, you will see Social Santa tagged alongside Every Moment is a Choice Studio and my personal accounts. I have to consolidate because the ultimate goal right now is to build that following to the 10,000-mark where Meta actually starts paying for the views, likes, and shares on the videos I am grinding out. That is where the passive income is, but all my accounts are currently sitting around that 1,500 to 2,000 mark. I have a long way to go.

    If you see me posting a ton, it just means I had the time to sit down and schedule a week's worth of content before getting sidetracked by farm work or hitting the road. If I don't feed the algorithm what it wants, I fall through the cracks. So, if you want to support this mission without spending a dime, all you have to do is like, share, and comment. It pushes my work further, gets the follower counts up, and helps build the positive income needed to keep everything running.

    Because of that massive financial and time investment into the rodeo side this year, the 2026 Santa season is going to look a little different. There isn't going to be a massive budget for brand new, extravagant display items. It is going to be a lot of recycling, repairing old pieces, and making whatever I have work. I am doing this because I believe the rodeo side will eventually become the passive income that keeps the meaning behind Social Santa and the Patchwork Bears alive for the long haul.

    Alongside all of this, I have also been quietly working on a brand new project with the help of a few incredible companies. If it all pans out, it is going to put me in a completely different light—and a completely different area of the rodeo arena—next season. I still have a few things to iron out before I say too much, but let's just say it definitely hinges on my deep enjoyment of being behind somewhat of a mask, similar to Santa, and being able to act, entertain, and play out in public as someone other than myself.

     A five-year-old lying in a hospital bed hooked up to monitors doesn't care about corporate policy. A child sitting in a crisis center holding back tears doesn't care what style of photography paid for the bear in their arms. They don't know about board meetings, liability forms, or administrative politics.

    All that child knows is that someone saw them. Someone cared. Someone made sure they had something soft to squeeze in the middle of a nightmare.

    If institutions want to lock their doors and let paperwork dictate who is allowed to show compassion, that is their choice. But it will not kill this mission. The roadmap is shifting, the sets might be recycled, and the hustle is harder than ever, but the destination remains unchanged.

The kids will always come first. Always.

Lee J. Kemp

Every Moment Is A Choice Studio 🔗 emiacstudio.ca

Social Santa, Patchwork Bears, Emiac Studio, Rodeo Photography, Central Alberta, CARA Rodeo, Bull Riders Canada, BRC, Rural Alberta, Charity, Bull Riders Canada, BRC, Community, Grassroots Rodeo

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