We are so excited for today’s article about Ethan & Choco’s Book Club in the Orange County Register! Thank you to Theresa Walker for writing such a terrific article! Click HERE for the link to the online version
We didn’t manage to get our hands on a printed newspaper until this evening…and when we did, Ethan was so excited to see that he actually made the front page (I was pretty excited too)!! That was such a great surprise!! 
Because it’s not mentioned in the article, I’d like to acknowledge the amazing support of the organizations that have helped ECBC to get off the ground so far. We’re so grateful for Audra Wilford and the MaxLove Project, which has partnered with us to provide invaluable organizational support and is doing tremendous work to offer whole body wellness programs and anti-cancer nutrition that helps kids battling cancer to thrive through treatment and well beyond. I’d also like to acknowledge Susie Alexander and the Tustin bookstore Once Upon a Storybook , which has promoted, supported, and donated books to ECBC each month since our launching last December. We’re also grateful for the substantial book donations from Milk and Bookies, Barry Ackerman and Kids READ, PBS SoCal, Kris Mauger Allison and Burnham Benefits, and DOGObooks.com. And, we are grateful for the support of the Kiwanis Club of Irvine, as well as the Kiwanis clubs of Orange County for their initial donation and pledge of future support. Finally, thank you to Tod and Sharon Paris and the Adzich Family for your significant monetary donations, and all of the individual donors who have donated money and books over the past year. We’re so grateful for all of the donations thus far, and yet this is just the very beginning of a long-term effort! We will need significant ongoing monetary and new book donations in the months and years to come in order to create a sustainable library for hospitalized kids in Orange County. To donate money, you can visit our fundraising site at http://bit.ly/EthansBooks, and to donate new books, you can visit our wish list on Amazon at https://amzn.com/w/BLD7UEVPPPO.
Since we launched fundraising efforts for Ethan & Choco’s Book Club in December 2015, we’ve been working hard to raise money, collect books, build awareness and make connections in Orange County, and coordinate plans for starting up in the hospital. Our first official ECBC event at CHOC is a launching party planned for December 9th, where we plan to give away new books, have a few local authors read aloud, and engage patients in book-related crafting. Our hope is that shortly thereafter, at the start of 2017, we will begin implementation of phase 1 in the hospital, which is “Reading Aloud in Every Room” — where trained volunteers will visit patient rooms to read aloud and promote literacy skills, conversations, and good thinking. After getting this initial phase off the ground, we hope to move quickly to phase 2, which will involve mobile book carts visiting patient rooms and the start of a Lending Library at CHOC. We are excited to finally be approaching a start date at CHOC!
Ethan unfortunately had to be admitted at CHOC on Tuesday due to a fever and critically low blood counts (his absolute neutrophil count is 0, meaning he has no ability to fight infection). It is his first time being inpatient since before we launched ECBC, and being here reminds him just how much books and reading are needed at the hospital. As always, he sees patients on screens and on devices — but it’s nearly impossible to see anyone with a book! While visiting the hospital radio station on Thursday (his favorite place to when he’s here), Ethan turned to me and said,”Mom, can I just do something for ECBC now, since I’m at the hospital anyway?” What a great idea — why not take advantage of us being here and get some books into kids’ hands, even if informal and impromptu?! So we made a plan with the radio station manager for Ethan to host a show, cleared it with Child Life, and I rushed home to get a pile of new books from our Gifting Library. And at 4:00 on Thursday, Ethan went on air at the hospital (which goes into patient rooms)!! He introduced himself and the mission of ECBC, read aloud two of his favorite books, and showed off book titles that he was giving away. About 15 kids ended up coming down to the station to choose books, and afterwards Ethan gave away another 15 books to oncology patients on the 5th floor. Ethan says “it was so awesome” to finally get to share his love of reading at CHOC, and he can’t wait to do more! Per the invitation of the radio station manager, it looks like a regular radio show hosted by Ethan is in the works!
Here’s Ethan’s Daily 
This afternoon, ECBC received a tremendous donation of books from 
Here’s Ethan’s Daily 
Ethan was so excited to make an announcement about Ethan & Choco’s Book Club at Arroyo Elementary’s Flag Assembly today! Click 
Tonight our local bookstore owner Susie Alexander teamed up with Ethan to provide a book table at Arroyo Elementary School’s Family Bingo Night. In one hour, Ethan & Choco’s Book Club (ECBC) received quite a few book donations — thank you Arroyo families who donated! And Ethan was so proud to be in “the public” with ECBC for the first time, collecting books and sporting our new ECBC t-shirts. We are so excited to be partnering with Susie and Once Upon a Storybook! Thank you Susie!
Our first batch of ECBC t-shirts came in the mail today! Ethan was so excited to see them and do his next Book Look wearing one. I love seeing his pride and ownership with this project — he really feels like he’s doing something special and like he has a significant role. We’ll have youth shirts on sale for the first time at the Arroyo Ripple Kids Fair next Thursday after school! 
Since we launched Ethan & Choco’s Book Club at the end of 2015, we’ve had a great logo that matches the branding style of all of the logos used by the MaxLove Project (MLP) and its various programs. We think this logo is fantastic, and it will continue to be used on the MaxLove Project website and whenever ECBC is promoted with MLP and alongside other MLP programs.. However, we also wanted a logo that is more aligned with Ethan’s vision (boy and CHOCO the bear reading a book together) and that looked like it belonged at CHOC Hospital. So our amazing neighbor and artist (check out his website 
And here’s Ethan’s Daily 
