A child’s Christmas wish is a small, specific thing. A doll. A book. A pair of shoes in the right size. Dear SC exists to make sure someone is listening.

Every December, children from disadvantaged communities across Iloilo City are invited to do something most children already do: write a letter to Santa Claus. They describe, in their own words, what they hope to find under the tree — modest wishes, written in crayon and careful cursive, folded into envelopes addressed to someone who they believe will read them.

Someone does. Through Dear SC, those letters are passed along to individuals and organizations in the community who want to help. Sponsors take a letter, find the gift, and make the wish real. The exchange is simple by design. What it produces — for the child who receives the gift, and for the person who gave it — is something harder to manufacture.

By the numbers

• ~200 children reached annually across barangays in Iloilo City
• 5 consecutive years running, from December 2021 through 2025
• 1 letter per child — toys, books, clothing, school supplies

The story behind it

Long before he held a seat in the Sangguniang Panlungsod, Atty. Sedfrey Cabaluna was already showing up for outreach work at Christmastime. The formal program came later; the instinct came first. Dear SC is, in that sense, less a policy initiative than a personal habit scaled into something the community could join.

Since 2021, the project has run every December — five years of letters written, sponsors found, and gifts delivered to children in barangays across the city. The gifts are real — toys, books, clothing, school supplies — but the project is really about proximity. It puts the children of Iloilo’s most underserved communities in direct correspondence with neighbors who can help them, closing a gap that statistics rarely capture and budgets alone cannot fix.

Looking ahead

The goal for the coming years is straightforward: more letters, more sponsors, more barangays. The program is built to grow with the Ilonggo community’s generosity, and the invitation is open — to individuals, to businesses, to anyone who wants a child’s Christmas wish to land somewhere real this December.

Get involved

Sponsors and partner organizations are welcome each year. Reach out to the Office of Councilor Sedfrey Cabaluna to participate in the next run of Dear SC.