In September 2025, we shared the difficult decision made by our Board of Directors to close down ECBC (view this message HERE). We are so proud of the ten years of impact that ECBC had at CHOC Children’s Hospital and are immensely grateful for the tremendous support of our community, who made the work of ECBC possible. Check out this graphic summary of ECBC’s impact, keeping in mind that the numbers can’t capture the intangible ways that books and read-alouds nourished patients’ lives. Thank you again to the fantastic and loyal community who stood behind ECBC for so long and allowed us to spend a decade helping hospitalized kids to thrive through books and literacy experiences. (Note: scroll to the bottom for the link to our Farewell Video)
Over the past eight months, we have been busy with the tedious work required to dissolve a nonprofit. By the end of October 2025, all inpatient and outpatient programs had concluded, and in late Fall we celebrated our hospital volunteers with a gratitude dinner with many beautiful bedside reader-patient stories shared by all. We took inventory of, sorted, packed up, and moved thousands of books (15,922, to be exact) — a feat that was possible only because of the tremendous help of the Arvida Book Co Foundation with transporting and storing the majority of the books in the Arvida Foundation warehouse. Arvida made this incredibly daunting task easy and seamless, and we are so grateful.
When dissolving a nonprofit organization, all assets must be distributed to another 501(c)3. ECBC’s priority has been to distribute resources to organizations and programs that are as closely aligned with ECBC’s founding mission as possible. Approximately 1200 new books went to the nonprofit KidsREAD, which donates books to children in need — such as in hospitals, Title 1 schools, and shelters. On the inpatient side of CHOC Children’s Hospital, ECBC funded the creation of two Book Nooks (with $9K cash + 1500 new books) — one in the lobby of the oncology floor, and the other in the Teen Room. The hope was to transfer ECBC’s bedside reading program and mobile library cart program to be managed internally by CHOC, with ECBC providing financial resources and supplies, training, and volunteers to do so. To date, The inpatient team at CHOC has vowed to “honor ECBC’s legacy through continued literacy programming”…without doubt, this is ECBC’s greatest hope.
ECBC is most thrilled that the majority of our remaining resources ($45K +12,450 new books) have been donated to CHOC Outpatient Oncology, in order to fund the creation of the ECBC Outpatient Book Nook. This is essentially a transfer of program from ECBC management to CHOC Outpatient Oncology management, and it means that the significant outpatient book gifting will continue, where patients will continue to have the opportunity to select a new book each time they visit the Oncology Clinic or the Outpatient Infusion Center. ECBC is so grateful for Outpatient Oncology’s (and especially Nurse Manager Ali Langdon’s) steadfast commitment to carry on our mission! The ECBC Outpatient Book Nook will be created in a perfect alcove of the Oncology Clinic lobby, and it will hold hundreds of children’s books for all patient ages infant through teen/young adult organized by book type on cover-facing and traditional shelving. It will also have comfortable and inviting seating options, as well as literature for parents/caregivers that provides tips for supporting literacy while at the hospital and during treatment. Currently, ECBC is working on designing the Book Nook with CHOC Oncology, the purchasing department, and the CHOC Foundation.
Beyond initial funding and books from ECBC, sustaining the Outpatient Book Nook over the long term will require approximately $5K per month (based on the volume of outpatient book gifting that ECBC provided in years past). If you would like to continue to support outpatient book gifting for oncology and other CHOC patients, you can:
- Make a monetary donation at raiseup.choc.org/becreative/ECBC. An ECBC fund/fundraiser has been set up with the CHOC Foundation to allow funds to be allocated towards ECBC mission-supporting supplies and programs — specifically, children’s books and literacy programs. For the time being, all monetary donations will go towards supporting the new Outpatient Book Nook. We hope that eventually this fund might be able to support new books and literacy practices on the inpatient side of CHOC as well. (Note that, despite current book inventory, there are ongoing monetary costs, as the book types in highest demand are always depleted and require constant purchasing.)
- Donate new books. Contact Ali Langdon at alangdon@choc.org to coordinate the delivery of new books to the hospital, or drop off the books at Arvida Book Co in Old Town Tustin (Be sure to specify that the books are for the ECBC Outpatient Book Nook at CHOC).
- Make a monetary donation to the Arvida Foundation in order to support Arvida’s costs to store the books — which are currently taking up half of their warehouse space. Without Arvida’s support, continuing outpatient book gifting would be very difficult given the hospital’s lack of storage space for books. Donate at https://www.arvidafoundation.org/
Alas, goodbye from ECBC. When we founded Ethan & Choco’s Book Club in 2015, our mission came from first-hand observation of the hospital lacking explicit and persistent support for literacy and cognitive health — in a context of otherwise superb medical, physical, and social-emotional care. CHOC Children’s hospital prides itself on being “defenders of childhood”. The past decade of ECBC’s work has certainly shown the logistical feasibility and patient benefit of a hospital experience that include access to high-quality books and literature-based experiences — connecting patients to new knowledge and thinking, other people, and other worlds. In the coming years, ECBC hopes that support for literacy and cognitive health will be a vital part of what it means to defend childhood and support longterm thrivership.
Please cbeck out our farewell video, produced by our Founder, Ali.
