Last month was ECBC’s “largest outpatient book delivery” to date, and yesterday we beat that with our July gifting library re-stocking! We delivered 516 new books to CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and at the Oncology Clinic. And we also delivered 19 more Read Think Thrive book bags for kids who are newly diagnosed with cancer — which are each filled with 10 new books. So we delivered a total of 706 new books to CHOC!

ECBC’s volume of book gifting to outpateint oncology has increased significantly over the last several months. The nurses are sharing that patients are now arriving for their chemo infusion or their oncology visit eager to choose a book, and almost all kids are choosing a book over a toy. As stated in our mission, ECBC strives “to make access to books and reading a core part of the care that kids receive in the hospital” — it’s so exciting that books have become a regular and expected part of patients’ outpatient oncology experience!

Please consider supporting our annual fundraiser — BOOK IT (a charity walk/run on Monday Sept 4) — to help us keep this up! You can sign up to join us at runsignup.com/BOOKIT2023.

ECBC will not be hosting our annual in-person  fundraising event again this year. Continued uncertainty regarding Covid-19 at the time that event decisions had to be made, along with significant upfront event costs, posed too great a risk for our tiny nonprofit. We are, however, conducting a virtual run and book drive  — and WE NEED YOUR HELP MORE THAN EVER! 

Please support BOOK IT 2022 by participating in our RUN 5 DONATE 5 NOMINATE 5 Challenge! It involves these 3 simple steps: 

1. RUN 5! Run, walk, cycle, or swim 5 miles, kilometers, or minutes.
2. DONATE 5!  Donate 5 of something that we need for our various book and reading programs at CHOC, such as 5 books, book bags, Kindles, or months of book cart re-stocking. Donate and select donation level at www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2022.
3. NOMINATE 5! After running 5 and donating 5, take a photo of yourself with a children’s book. Share it on social media, tag 5 people, and ask them to do these same 3 steps. Include the above link to the donation site and #BOOKIT2022 with your post.

Other ways you can help include:

• Help us spread the word by sharing the link to our donation site OR by sharing the digital file below — by text/email/social media or you can print hard copies. 
• Create your own fundraising page on runsignup.com/BOOKIT2022. This will give you a unique URL to share to your community so that they donate directly to your page. This is especially great for groups, such as sports teams, philanthropic groups, or community businesses. 
• Donate a book directly. Click HERE to access the BOOK IT 2021 Amazon Wish List. 

Digital/printable BOOK IT 2022 flyer to share: https://ethanandchocosbookclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/BookIt_2022_DigitalFlyerV.3_Linked.pdf

THANK YOU for helping kids thrive through treatment with high-quality books and reading experiences!

SAVE THE DATE! SEPTEMBER 4 2023! THANK YOU for BOOKing IT with ECBC to support cognitive health and thrivership through books and reading at CHOC Children’s Hospital!  BOOK IT! will return next year with our onsite walk/run events, community book drive, and literary costume contest. Mark your calendars!

We just received the MOST AMAZING book donation, thanks to ECBC bedside reader and longtime supporter Fenny Kogenge! Upon the recent passing of Fenny’s father-in-law, Fenny asked for book donations from family and friends in his memory, rather than flowers. We created an Amazon wish list of the many titles that ECBC most needs, and the response was truly tremendous. The books were sent directly to Fenny, and she had all of the titles on display at the beautiful celebration of life that she hosted at her home. Additionally, Fenny (@Fenny’s Flowers) created twenty gorgeous succulent arrangements and auctioned them off in an online silent auction, where she used 100% of the proceeds to purchase additional books from the wish list. Fenny collected and just delivered a combined total of 540 books — all high quality wonderful titles, all bookplated with custom book plates in memory of Gene Kokenge. THANK YOU Fenny for this tremendous and creative bookraising effort — it is by far the most significant donation of the past year and much needed due to the volume of books we are gifting regularly to kids at CHOC Children’s Hospital. And thank you to Jason and Georgia; we are so grateful that they wanted to honor their father and husband in this way. We can’t wait to get these wonderful books into the hands of kids at CHOC who are battling cancer and other life-threatening conditions! #booksinsteadofflowers #bookdrive #books4CHOC #thriveagainstcancer #readthinkthrive

If you’d like to make an end-of-year gift to ECBC, now is the time! .Per hospital restrictions due to Covid, ECBC has temporarily shifted away from our low-cost volunteer1based reading programs and towards 100% book gifting. So our costs are way up, while our usual incoming book donations are way down (since schools and philanthropies aren’t having their usual book fairs and onsite book collection events). Which means ECBC needs help more than ever, as do the hospitalized kids we serve (since patients aren’t getting the usual volunteers and visitors which are so vital to keeping them entertained and happy).

To make a 100% tax-deductible gift of any size, use the button below:

Select donation level
$20 (Hardcover book)$50 (5 Gifting library books)$150 (Read Think Thrive Bag for new cancer diagnosis)$250 (Sponsor teen oncology patient in virtual book club for 1 year (Kindle, monthly e-books)$500 (50 Gifting Library books in needed category (ie Spanish, board books)$2500 (Re-stock outpatient gifting library cart)

To set up a recurring donation to ECBC via PayPal, click HERE:

THANK YOU for helping ECBC to keep providing hospitalized kids with high-quality, curated children’s literature during this especially difficult time.

Ethan & Choco’s Book Club is a public benefit, non-profit corporation, EIN83-2934289.

The 27th way that ECBC helps hospitalized kids thrive is more of a “future way” that we hope to grow into — which is to help provide parents with the knowledge, tools, and inspiration to support their kids’ reading and cognitive health while in the hospital and through life-altering treatment. Until now, this has largely been through our bedside readers modeling for parents the importance of reading aloud as part of kids’ treatment, the types of books to choose, and how to read aloud in engaging ways that support them cognitive and emotionally. During their reading sessions, bedside readers have also had informal conversations with parents about these things. The hope for 2021/when our volunteers can return to CHOC in person is to host regular “Parents as Literacy Partners” workshops, which will be mini science-based seminar+discussion style sessions with guidance, practical tips, and materials for parents to use with their kids. We hope these will empower parents to make books and reading part of their daily hospital and home treatment plan! For now, ECBC has a “parent tips” pamphlet available to parents at CHOC (soon to be accessible on our website), which is our first go at starting this conversation more formally with parents. We are excited to expand from this into parent workshops as soon as we can!

If you haven’t yet supported BOOK IT 2020, please consider donating at a level that represents how you might have participated if we were in-person this year: cost of your registration to run ($40), cost of your family to run ($160 for family of four), online book drive donation (an additional $20 for a hardcover lending library book or $125 for a book bag for a new cancer diagnosis at CHOC).To donate, go to www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020. THANK YOU for supporting BOOK IT and helping to honor cancer warriors during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month!

ECBC is now in the final week of the BOOK IT 2020 virtual book drive — our online effort to fundraise and bookraise since we couldn’t have our onsite charity run this year. We are currently 2/3 the way to our fundraising goal — Please help ECBC keep going until BOOK IT 2021— next September! Hospitalized kids need books now more than ever, and we’re about to re-start some of our programs at CHOC in covid-modified ways. 

To wrap up BOOK IT 2020 as well as honor Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, each day of September I have been sharing a way that ECBC helps hospitalized kids to thrive with books and reading.  I will finish off the last week of BOOK IT with seven more days of thrive ways. For today, September 24th, the 24th way that ECBC helps hospitalized kids thrive is by offering high-quality nonfiction/informational text for patients of all ages. Nonfiction/informational text is so important for kids to read for many reasons, including because it helps build world knowledge, it can be matched to kids’ interests and hence facilitate positive attitudes about reading, it comprises the majority of reading that kids do across academic content areas and in “real life” so kids need to learn comprehension skills for success with informational text (which are different than narrative/stories).ECBC makes a hard effort, across all of our programs, to make sure that patients get some access to the nonfiction/informational books. However, we currently have very few informational texts. Please help!

If you haven’t yet supported BOOK IT 2020, please consider donating at a level that represents how you might have participated if we were in-person this year: cost of your registration to run ($40), cost of your family to run ($160 for family of four), online book drive donation (an additional $20 for a hardcover lending library book or $125 for a book bag for a new cancer diagnosis at CHOC).To donate, go to www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020. To donate a nonfiction book directly, go to ECBC’s BOOK IT Amazon wish list (CLICK HERE) and use keyword “nonfiction” in the search box to locate books. All books purchased from this list will be sent directly to ECBC. #BOOKIT2020 #nonfiction #infotext #books4choc #thriveagainstcancer #childhoodcancerawarenessmonth 

September 22. The 22nd way that ECBC helps hospitalized kids thrive through treatment is by participating in larger hospital events by giving away books, hosting storytimes, and guiding patients in book-inspired crafts. For example, ECBC has a booth at CHOC’s annual Halloween event where patients trick-or-treat for books, ECBC brings its mobile book cart to MaxLove Projects monthly Be Super Parties in the hospital library to give away books and sometimes host a story time with craft, and ECBC participates in CHOC’s inpatient cancer survivorship day with book crafting ables and book give-aways. Having a presence at larger hospital events helps to fulfill ECBC’s mission to make books and reading part of the landscape of kids’ everyday care at CHOC. 

To support BOOK IT 2020 and ECBC’s participation in hospital events, go to www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020 to donate. Note that per hospital requirements, ECBC only gives away brand new books, so the cost of a book give-away booth even at just a couple hour event can be pretty significant. THANK YOU for helping to honor cancer warriors and hospitalized kids during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month! #BOOKIT2020 #books4choc #readthinkthrive #thriveagainstcancer #childhoodcancerawarenessmonth