Academy Award winning screenwriter Barry Morrow has spent a lifetime telling stories inspired by people the world too often overlooks, including the real men whose lives inspired Bill and Rain Man. Today, his story is not about Hollywood, but about children with special needs in Sacramento and in a small fishing village in the northern Philippines.
From red carpets and Christmas Lights in California to shared meals and medical care across the ocean, two Christmas missions are quietly transforming lives. This is his personal invitation to help light up the holidays for those who deserve it the most.
My name is Barry Morrow, and I have spent most of my life writing stories about people who changed me. Some may know the film Bill with Mickey Rooney and Dennis Quaid, or Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. But long before any awards or recognition, there were real men behind those stories, men who carried their challenges with courage, humor and a quiet dignity that stays with you long after the lights fade.
The more time I spent with people the world often overlooks, the more I learned. Those with intellectual and developmental disabilities see life with a clarity and honesty that can stop you in your tracks. They taught me patience, humility and a tenderness of spirit that shaped not only my writing, but the way I look at every child who lives with challenges, wherever that child may be.
On several journeys, my friend Frank Gayaldo traveled with me. Together we delivered smiles and autism awareness from Sacramento to Shanghai. We stood in classrooms and community halls and watched children light up in moments that stay with me even now. Frank always met people with respect and kindness, carrying the same heart whether he was standing in a city of millions or in a village few have ever heard of. Our travels reminded both of us that compassion moves easily across borders.
A few years ago, my wife Beverly and I joined publisher Sergey Ivannikov and his remarkable team in Sacramento. Together, we helped welcome children with special needs to a night of movie magic, limousine rides, Christmas lights and pure joy. Sergey’s annual “Christmas Lights” celebration is, in my view, a master class in generosity. It is an evening where children who often feel invisible suddenly become the stars of their own holiday story. Watching those kids smile reminded me again how much a simple act of inclusion can change a life.
Frank was deeply moved by that experience. He carried the spirit of Sergey’s project thousands of miles away to the northern Philippines, the homeland of his late wife, known to many as Nurse Edythe. It is a place of beauty and generosity, shaped by storms, earthquakes, volcanoes and hardship, yet held together by people who know how to endure with grace.
This year, Frank and his friend, Santa Bill Lock, are preparing their seventh Christmas mission since Edythe’s passing. Their hope is simple:
• Bring joy to children with special needs.
• Share a Christmas meal with families who seldom receive one.
• Offer medical, dental and vision care to people who often go without.
• Make sure households enter the holidays with rice on their tables and a little less weight on their shoulders.
Children who rarely feel seen will be celebrated. Families will gather for a meal they did not expect. Doctors and nurses will give their time freely. Local volunteers will bring music, laughter and a sense of community. A humble fishing village where people work hard and ask for very little will feel, for one day, that the world reached back toward them.
Frank and Santa Bill are close to making all of this possible, but they still need a bit more help to finish the work.
At the same time, here in Sacramento, Sergey Ivannikov’s Christmas Lights 2025 celebration will once again open its arms to local children with special needs, primarily those affected by autism spectrum disorders and Down syndrome.
LIGHT UP THE HOLIDAY SEASON FOR THOSE WHO DESERVE IT THE MOST
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2025
On that evening, families will arrive not to a clinic or a waiting room, but to a celebration. Children will step onto a red carpet, greeted like VIPs. They will enjoy a movie night at the Esquire IMAX Theater, then climb into limousines provided by Baylight Limo & Private Transportation and SIV Transport for a tour of Sacramento’s ornamented Christmas houses. There will be Christmas presents. There will be laughter. There will be parents who, for once, watch their children belong rather than stand on the sidelines.
The “Christmas Lights” program is brought together by a coalition of coordinators, parents and community leaders who believe that every child deserves a night like this at least once in their life. But belief alone does not fund buses, limousines, movie tickets, meals or gifts. That takes partners. That takes people willing to stand quietly in the background so that children can stand joyfully in the spotlight.
This year, people can support either effort, or both.
• In Sacramento, Christmas Lights 2025 will bring red carpet greetings, an IMAX movie, gift cards and a limousine tour of the city’s Christmas lights to children with special needs and their families.
• In the northern Philippines, Frank and Santa Bill’s mission will bring hope, care and celebration to children and families who live with daily hardship but never lose their sense of resilience.
Both projects honor the same truth: when you show a child that they matter, everything else changes.
Throughout my life I have stood on stages and held awards, but those moments do not compare to the quiet ones. A child’s smile. A parent’s relief. A shared meal in a place far from home. These are the moments that remind me of what truly matters.
If you can help either of these Christmas missions, your kindness will travel farther than you might imagine, from Sacramento streets lined with Christmas lights to a fishing village on the other side of the world, and it will arrive exactly where it is needed most.
Thank you for listening, and thank you for anything you can give. Every penny and every peso truly count.
Barry Morrow
Oscar and Emmy Award Winning American Screenwriter and Film Producer
ABOUT CHRISTMAS LIGHTS:
“Christmas Lights” is a charity program that provides children with special needs with an opportunity to experience the joy of the holiday season. The program primarily serves children affected by autism spectrum disorders and Down syndrome.
HOW TO SUPPORT:
❤️ Donate any amount that is feasible for you, online: www.CouncilForCrossCulturalAffairs.org/donate
💚 Mail a sponsorship check to the Council For Cross Cultural Affairs with memo “Christmas Lights” to:
CCCA, 1851 Heritage Ln, Ste 141-C, Sacramento, CA 95815
