ECBC just re-stocked our gifting libraries at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and the Oncology Clinic with 572 new books — our largest monthly book donation to our outpatient libraries to date! As of this month, we have a new book cart in the outpatient Oncology Clinic (Hyundai Cancer Institute). Prior, we have had a cart in OPI, but in the oncology clinic we have only had book bins on a couple of shelves behind the check-in counter. With this additional cart, we will be providing an additional 50-70 more books per month (approx increased cost of $500-$700 monthly), and patients will also have easier access to viewing and selecting their book of choice to keep.

Each month, we curate books to meet the diverse ages and reading interests of patients… book bins include board books, Spanish-language books, picture books, learn-to-read books, informational/nonfiction texts, activity and joke books, graphic novels for beginning readers, graphic novels for older readers, easy chapter books, middle grade chapter books, teen/young adult books ,and poetry for kids as well as more sophisticated poetry anthologies for teens and YA. When we aren’t able to fill a bin for a particular book type with our inventory of donated books, we purchase to fill in the gaps. We love re-stocking our gifting libraries each month and knowing that oncology patients are selecting high-quality books to keep (and hopefully read!) each time they visit the hospital — but it’s a hefty commitment for our tiny nonprofit! Please watch out for Ethan’s upcoming wishlist fundraiser and consider donating our current most needed book type to help us keep up!