Striving to make access to books and reading a core part of the care that kids receive in the hospital, with the premise that literacy support for children fighting cancer and other life-altering conditions can help promote cognitive health and social connections that are part of thriving through treatment and beyond
Thank you CarterStrongForever for your Recent CarterStrongForever Bucket List Book Drive and the books you just donated to ECBC. This is CarterStrong’s last donation directly to ECBC as a nonprofit entity, so we’d like to express how much we’ve cherished the partnership with the Ankeny family and CarterStrongForever for the past nine years. We remember back to 6-year-old Carter’s first Bucket List Book Drive in 2017, just after he relapsed, and the awesome 700 books that we received. After that initial donation, ECBC created a CarterStrongForever wish list of 100 titles to represent Carter — his kindness, humor, bravery, love for baseball, and love for superheroes especially Captain America. It has been such an honor to be able to play a tiny part in carrying on Carter’s legacy by sharing Carter’s books with hospitalized patients — especially oncology kiddos. Thank you CSF for letting ECBC help to celebrate Carter over the years.
And, we look forward to helping to continue to share Carter’s favorite books in the future through an ECBC funded outpatient Book Nook at CHOC — more on this to come!
Thank you Arroyo families who purchased Halloween books for ECBC at your book fair last week! We have so appreciated Arroyo’s support for ten consecutive years! If any Arroyo families didn’t get a chance to donate a book and would like to, we still need a few hundred more! Click HERE to donate!
THANK YOU Hicks Canyon Elementary School for conducting yet another book drive for ECBC, and for the 80 terrific books that you donated this week! This was your 4th consecutive year collecting books for ECBC, and at two book drives per year — your seventh book drive! Your commitment to helping our cause has helped us so much the last several years, and we are so grateful! A very special thank you to Tina Jussal for making this (and every) Hicks book drive happen! #thrivepartnerschool #books4CHOC #readthinkthrive #thriveagainstcancer
THANK YOU to National Charity League North Tustin for your June book drive and your INCREDIBLE effort! ECBC just received NCL’s donation of 444 new books of EVERY type, including board books, picture books, learn-to-read books, nonfiction/information books, graphic novels, easy chapter books, middle grade chapter books, teen/YA books, Spanish-language books, and poetry! Also, every book came with an inserted beautiful handmade bookmark — a bookmark per book is such a cool gesture that we’ve never received before! And a special thank you to Ali, Kendall, and Haley Langdon for organizing the book drive, collecting/bookplating/sorting the books, and delivering them! We so appreciate NCL North Tustin’s ongoing support!
Thank you to Canyon High School for your recent donation of 116 new books, and a big thank you to Canyon’s Babysitters Club for their great efforts in organizing a book drive at their school! The Babysitters Club promoted the book drive, made nine colorful donation boxes to place around campus, worked with teachers to set up incentives, and organized and delivered the books. We can’t wait to get these awesome books to patients at CHOC next week!
Thank you Arvida Book Co and Arvida’s amazing customers for the 132 new books they donated last month! These books came in as a result of Arvida’s “flash tattoo” fundraiser to celebrate Independent Book Store Day (donate a book, get a free flash tattoo) as well as an in-person visit by best-selling children’s author Stuart Gibbs (where a generous customer purchased a large number of Gibbs books to donate). Arvida is one of ECBC’s few long-standing community partners that hosts regular book drives for ECBC, and we appreciate their support so very much!
THANK YOU to Hewes Middle School families for the 338 new books that you donated to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club last month! This was Hewes’ fourth consecutive year hosting their own school book drive, and as in the past, they delivered a terrific collection of new, high-quality books for patients of all ages from infant/toddler through teen and young adult. Which included a LARGE number of graphic novels and board books, our two most needed book types!
A special thank you to Ms. Cordero’s first period class (pictured below) for winning first place in the class competition by donating the most number of books — her class brought in 115 new books, more than 1/3 of the total! They will receive a private Hula Hoop Throw Down party with donuts and music during 1st period. Way to go Ms. Cordero’s class! And a HUGE thank you to Hewes’ Leadership teacher Dean Jennings for leading the effort and for the work of the leadership class in organizing and promoting the book drive. We appreciate you so much as a lead contributing Thrive Partner School — and you provide a terrific model for how to organize and incentivize student/family support. THANK YOU! We can’t wait to share these awesome books with oncology patients at CHOC Children’s Hospital!
Thank you NCL North Tustin for hosting a book drive for ECBC as part of NCL’s National Day of Service MLK Book Drive. We just received the 181 new books that the NCL North Tustin chapter collected — all terrific titles that include a range of book types to meet patients’ diverse reading interests and needs. Thank you to all of the NCL young ladies and families who contributed to this effort — we can’t wait to share these books with CHOC kiddos at our upcoming delivery next week! We especially appreciate this donation given that it is on the heels of NCL North Tustin’s Halloween book drive in October — it is rare that we get back-to-back donations so close in time from the same group! We so appreciate NCL North Tustin’s ongoing support!
ECBC just received such a wonderful donation! Loma Vista Elementary School had an entrepreneur fair, where a portion of the proceeds went to charity. LV Student Council and Entrepreneurs were given some ideas of charities to donate to, and they chose ECBC! They used the funds to purchase and donate 117 terrific new books. We are so honored when our local students get to pick a charity and choose ECBC. THANK YOU Loma Vista!
THANK YOU to Baum Orthodontics in Tustin for the 117 new books! These will all be part of our delivery this Friday of approximately 500 books to CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center and the Oncology Clinic, where patients get to pick out a new book at every visit.
We are so grateful for our ongoing 5-years long partnership with Baum Ortho! And we so appreciate Dr. Baum’s ingenious retainer replacement program, where patients who have lost their retainer receive a greatly discounted price for their new retainer if they donate some new children’s books. We’ve now received thousands of books from Baum families….apparently kids are losing a ton of retainers!
Thank you Baum Ortho (and Baum Ortho families) for your incredible continued support!
Thank you TVT Lower School for your recent donation of 114 books. And a special thank you to the 5th graders for promoting the book drive, and to Lisa Jonsson and Kimberly Lee for organizing the book drive at TVT’s book fair. We so appreciate your ongoing support over the years!
ECBC has had so much fun over the past couple weeks celebrating Halloween with CHOC patients by sharing terrific Halloween-themed literature! This includes patients and siblings trick-or-treating for 207 Halloween books at our annual BOO-ks for Treats event; delivering 473 Halloween-themed books to our outpatient libraries at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center and at the Oncology Clinic; handing out 97 Halloween books individually to patient rooms via our Mobile Book Cart; and reading a whole bunch of spooky stories at oncology, neurology, and other patients’ bedside. This amounts to a total of 777 new Halloween-themed books being gifted this Halloween season! Additionally, volunteers gave out beautiful and inspirational literary Halloween cards made by local high students (e.g., “ENWITCH your mind by READING” with an illustration of a witch reading! or CARVE some time for reading with an illustration of a carved pumpkin). Patients are so excited to celebrate Halloween, and it’s magical how powerful a wonderful Halloween book can be to inspire reading that wouldn’t otherwise happen!
A huge thank you to everyone who donated and conducted their own book drives to make this all possible: NCL North Tustin for the 183 Halloween books and 186 Halloween cards they donated (thank you Ali, Haley and Kendall Langdon for organizing the book drive); the William P. Gray Legion Lex American Inn of Court for the 83 books they donated (thank you Elia Naqvi for organizing this book drive); the many individual donors who participated in Ethan’s Halloween book drive on Amazon that resulted in hundreds more books arriving in the mail; the Foothill High Schools Ethan & Choco student club for the 64 Halloween cards they made (thank you to club President Eleanor Nguyen); El Dorado High School’s Books 4 CHOC Club for the 50 cards they made (thank you to club President Leila Do); ECBC lead volunteers Cathie James and Anne Case for helping to host our BOO-ks for Treat event; and all of our ECBC bedside readers this month for delivering such fun read-aloud in patient rooms!
This post cannot be complete without mentioning the significance of ECBC’s Halloween book sharing for our Co-Founder Ethan. Just a few days prior to Halloween in 2014, Ethan was diagnosed with Leukemia at 7.5 years old. On October 31st of that year, exactly ten years ago today, Ethan had surgery to insert a port in his chest, he received his first dose of chemo, and he dressed up with his siblings to trick-or-treat at CHOC for candy and other small toys (yet no books to be seen!). And now, 10 years later and a high-school senior, it’s remarkable to witness Ethan’s continued joy in sharing his love of reading as he hands out Halloween-themed books so that patients can also enjoy literary candy!
A huge thank you to NCL North Tustin for hosting a Halloween book drive for ECBC over the past couple of weeks. We just received their donation of 183 Halloween-themed books — a terrific collection of new, high-appeal books for CHOC patients af all ages. NCL members also made beautiful literary-themed Halloween cards, with handwritten messages, to be gifted to patients along with the books. THANK YOU to NCL North Tustin young ladies and families who contributed to this awesome bookraiser — we can’t wait to share these with CHOC kiddos at our upcoming Halloween book give-aways at CHOC! A special shout out to Ali, Haley, and Kendall Langdon for organizing the book drive and collecting + bookplating all of the books at your home! New, high-quality books are expensive — It is efforts like these that keep us going!
We still need about 100 more books for our BOO-ks for Treats Halloween book gifting at CHOC. Please donate a book if you haven’t yet! To donate, go to: bit.ly/Halloweenbooks4ECBC
THANK YOU Hicks Canyon Elementary School PTA and families for hosting another book drive for ECBC and for your donation this week of 93 new books. Per their usual, Hicks’ donation included all wonderful high-interest titles, including a handful of graphic novels and beginning reading books which we really need. Hicks Canyon conducted the book drive alongside their school’s book fair, which works so well for elementary schools since parents are visiting the fair anyway to purchase books for their kids and teachers (and schools usually benefit in the form of Scholastic points from the increased sales).
Thank you Hicks for being one of ECBC’s few “regular” donors (aka “Thrive Partner Schools”). We so appreciate our Thrive Partner Schools as they provide passive book income for us that we can count on — which our tiny nonprofit very much needs. A special thank you to Tina Jussal for making this (and every) Hicks book drive happen!
This morning, co-founder Ethan attended Tustin Kiwanis Club’s Friday Meeting in order to receive an award for “outstanding academic achievement, positive impact on the community, and academic character”. In an opportunity to speak after receiving the award, Ethan shared his founding story and about ECBC’s mission, programs, and volume of book gifting. Ethan also gave a plug for our current annual fundraiser … which resulted in hundreds of dollars being donated on the spot! Thank you Kiwanis Club members, and especially Tim O’Donuhue for following up on Ethan’s speech with a commitment to donate and challenging fellow members to do the same!
Presenting at a Kiwanis Club meeting was one of Ethan’s first community presentations to garner support for our cause nearly nine years ago…it’s amazing to see him still going at it as he’s gearing up to finish high school and head to college!
Thank you Arroyo for collecting books for ECBC at your book fair this past week — we are grateful for the 87 awesome new books that you donated. And a special thank you to Claudia Rounaghi for your help organizing the book drive. We so appreciate Arroyo’s annual support since we started school book drives in 2016!
Thank you to El Dorado High School (Placentia, CA) for your awesome donation this month of 162 new books and monetary donation of $360! And a special thank you to EDHS’s Books 4 CHOC Club led by President Leila Do for all of your hard work in leading the book drive as well as the fundraiser at Handel’s. You collected a terrific bunch of high quality books for patients of all ages, including many of our most needed book types such as board books, graphic novels, and beginning reading books. This was Books 4 CHOC’s first year in existence since they founded their club in the fall of 2023, and they have had a productive first year of making literacy support items (i.e., bookmarks, literary-themed holiday cards) as well as hosting book drives and fundraisers. THANK YOU Books 4 CHOC!
If you are a high school student and interested in starting your own high school support club for ECBC and Orange County’s hospitalized kids, please send an email to ali@ECbookclub.com. Founding and running a club can be a great way to support your local community as well as gain impactful leadership experience!
We just picked up 160 books from Baum Ortho, who has collected books for ECBC on an ongoing basis for FIVE years now. Most books are donated through their retainer replacement program, where patients who have lost their retainer receive a greatly discounted price for their replacement retainer if they donate some new children’s books. How ingenious (and generous of Baum and co) is that?!
Baum Orthodontics is of several of ECBC’s Community Thrive Partners, which are community businesses who continue to support ECBC from year to year. We give out 500-600 new books per month to kids at CHOC Children’s Hospital, and these partnerships (along with our Thrive Partner Schools) are how we keep our gifting programs going. Thrive Partners are especially helpful for our tiny all volunteer-based nonprofit organization because they provide our charity with much-needed passive bookraising opportunities. Thank you Baum Ortho (and Baum Ortho families) for your incredible ongoing support!
If you are a Tustin or nearby business and interested in having a book collection box onsite, or if you are a philanthropic organization and want to host a book drive, please email ali@ECbookclub.com. Per hospital infectious disease rules, all books must be brand new.
Thank you Grace Lutheran School in Huntington Beach for hosting a FOURTH consecutive book drive for ECBC and collecting 136 terrific books! A special shout out to the awesome middle school students who conducted the book drive —they make their own posters and collection boxes; man a book donation table for a week before and after school; promote the book drive; and then count, sort, and deliver the books. Thank you to all the Grace Lutheran families who donated, and a special thank you to Joi Vutpakdi for her commitment to ECBC and coordinating this wonderful effort year after year.
We so appreciate our small handful of repeat donor (AKA “Thrive Partner Schools”) who host book drives for us annually. It is a TREMENDOUS help to have some bookraising happen that doesn’t require ECBC’s exceptionally limited resources in order to make happen. Grace Lutheran, and our few other Thrive Partner Schools and businesses — you are a true blessing to our tiny nonprofit!
