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
Today, ECBC closed the chapter on its inpatient literacy programming at CHOC Children’s Hospital, with two of our loyal retired educator volunteers completing the last of 1124 volunteer shifts and tens of thousands of books gifted on the inpatient side of the hospital over the past decade. Per ECBC’s usual routine, today’s volunteers started with the mobile gifting cart, giving away a bunch of terrific books to kids in isolation who are stuck in their rooms, followed by visiting non-isolation patient rooms with ECBC’s Read-Aloud Wagons and offering Halloween-themed storytime at patients’ bedside.
At the end of the shift, as bedside reading supplies were being cleared out of the storage cabinets, a mom and her teenage oncology patient daughter entered the room, asking how they can get a book and what days the book cart visits patient rooms. As I explained that this was ECBC’s last day of this program, it was tough to get their disappointed response– the teen loved books, “especially comic style”. I offered her to pick some books from the cart to keep, and she excitedly chose two graphic novels written for teens/young adults…she was grateful and left the room smiling. This program is difficult to say goodbye to because I so deeply know (from first-hand experience and scientifically) how valuable high-quality interactive read-alouds and high-quality literature is for patients, especially those stuck in the hospital with long-term stays. One of my very greatest joys is sharing quality and compelling books with kids, especially kiddos who wouldn’t otherwise have access to them. I will certainly miss being able to do this.
And tomorrow, we turn to ECBC’s BOO-ks for Treats at CHOC’s Halloween event — our very last ECBC event.
ECBC’s final month of bedside reading and book gifting — Halloween themed! Each wagon carries 30 favorite Halloween-themed books for storytime at patients’ bedside, with our usual five books per age group so that we can offer appropriate and engaging read-alouds for all patient age groups, infant through young adult. Please consider donating a Halloween book to help us with our Halloween- themed book gifting
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!
This past week ECBC delivered 24 of our Read Think Thrive Bags to CHOC Outpatient Oncology at the Hyundai Cancer Institute. These are ECBC’s book bags that go to patients just after they are diagnosed with cancer — valued at $150 per bag, they are curated by age/gender and filled with ten new high-quality books, book crafting supplies, and other literacy support materials (e.g., reading light, bookmark, “Care Card” and creative book response from a kid in the community encouraging the patient to read and create their own literary response). We love that these bags provide kids and teens who are newly diagnosed with cancer with materials and messaging that supports reading and cognitive thrivership right from the start of treatment (especially since these kids are often out of school and have limited access to high-quality literature-based experience).
ECBC delivers these bags regularly so that CHOC has ongoing inventory as needed. However, we are currently low on bags, and completely out of them for half of our age groups. Which means that we are in need of approximately $20,000 to fund our annual mega packaging day, where we package 120 bags to get us through the next 6-12 months. Please help by becoming an ECBC GEM (Give Every Month) — which is a commitment to a recurring donation at the amount you choose and would greatly help us to keep this program going!
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!
2024 was an impactful yet challenging year for ECBC. We gave away more than 6600 new books to CHOC Children’s Hospital patients across our various inpatient and outpatient book gifting programs, averaging approximately 550 books per month. And our incredible group of bedside reader volunteers delivered 500+ private read-aloud sessions at patients’ bedside — these interactive sessions target literacy skills, complex thinking, and are often kids’ only non-medical related conversations of the day. Despite strong programs and terrific hospital volunteers, fundraising took a significant hit when we were forced to cancel our in-person charity run due to significantly increased upfront costs of hosting the event. With 2023’s cushion, we raised enough to sustain our programs through the year; though our net revenue was negative, a trend our tiny nonprofit cannot afford to continue as we head into 2025. THANK YOU to everyone who supported ECBC in 2024 — every monetary donation; book donation; book drive by schools and other external groups; and social media shout-out has mattered and allowed ECBC to keep on going.
Going forward in 2025, ECBC is moving into its 10th year of book and reading programs at CHOC. This year, ECBC has the following four priorities:
TO SUSTAIN our high levels of book donations across our various book gifting programs — including our gifting libraries at CHOC’s Oncology Clinic and Outpatient Infusion Center so that every child visiting the clinic or OPI can select a high-quality book to keep; our book gifting to patients in isolation via our mobile library cart; our Read Think Thrive (RTT) Bags for patients as they are diagnosed with cancer (valued at $150/bag); and our holiday book gifting such as BOO-ks for Treats on Halloween and our December holiday book gifting. We hope to someday be able to expand beyond CHOC to provide our RTT Bags to kids at other hospitals who are diagnosed with cancer — though this is a more distant goal given the significant additional funds and storage space that would be required for more inventory. Sustaining means continued monetary and book support to continue to meet our hefty book gifting numbers of approximately 500-600 books ($5500) per month.
TO GROW our inpatient reading program to more expert reader volunteers, more days per week, more patient floors, and greater impact on kids’ thrivership during their hospital stays. We hope to move closer to our ultimate goal of offering reading to patients daily, consistent with decades of research that shows the benefits of reading aloud at least fifteen minutes per day. This goal is especially important for patients with long-term hospital stays who are often out of school and missing literature-based activities and instruction. We also plan to expand our impact by providing parents with resources to help them optimally support their kids’ cognitive health through treatment with books and reading. The hope is that this can include online methods as well as eventual in-person group sessions with parents during hospital stays.
TO OBTAIN office/storage space! We have spent the past 9+ years with a small offsite storage unit and using our founders’ house as the main source of our storage, as well the warehouse space of a friend (the hospital has very little storage space). We are in great need of a single space for book storage, book delivery and processing, and our volunteer activities (like filling the canvas bags for new diagnoses or sorting/stamping the hundreds of books that we gift each month). This is a huge and organizational-changing goal for ECBC that requires an additional $2500 per month to make happen.
TO RE-IMAGINE fundraising strategies so that we can continue the work of ECBC and afford to make the leap to securing office space. As a start, we are looking for champions of ECBC’s mission who are willing to commit to a recurring monthly donation and become an ECBC G.E.M. (Give Every Month). Our goal is to recruit 100 G.E.M.s who donate on average $75 per month — which would allow us to cover ECBC’s usual operational costs as well as $2K per month for office/storage space. We are also looking to recruit a new member to our Board of Directors who has fundraising expertise and can help strategize alternative fundraising methods.
Are you willing to become an ECBC G.E.M. and help us meet our goal? To commit to a recurring donation, please CLICK BELOW. Select your desired level of support or enter your own amount, and check the “Make this a monthly donation” box.
Click to become an ECBC G.E.M.
Thank you for helping ECBC help Orange County’s hospitalized kids to thrive with high-quality books and reading experiences! ECBC is a public-benefit non-profit corporation, EIN 83-2934289.
It’s December, and ECBC’s Read-Aloud Wagons are now filled with Christmas, Hanukkah, and other December holiday-themed books for our bedside reader volunteers to share with patients. Our volunteers love reading aloud some of the greatest children’s holiday stories of all time, as well as some contemporary favorites. However, we need many more holiday books so that kids who are stuck in the hospital this month can select a book to keep from our gifting carts. Please check out Ethan’s December holiday book wish list and donate a book or two at bit.ly/decemberholidaybooks
A huge thank you to The William P. Gray Legion Lex American Inn of Court for the 83 books you donated for ECBC’s upcoming BOO-ks for Treats at CHOC Children’s Hospital. And a special shout-out to Elia Naqvi for coordinating this Halloween Book Drive! We can’t wait to get these awesome books to oncology and other patients at CHOC in the next week!
It’s September 1st, which means that it’s Childhood Cancer Awareness Month (CCAM). Which also means that it’s time for Ethan & Choco’s Book Club’s (ECBC) annual fundraiser — BOOK IT, Running for Reading for Hospitalized Kids! We have always hosted our annual fundraiser during CCAM because it’s the time of year when cancer-related organizations make a dedicated effort to increase awareness and raise funds for those affected by childhood cancer. Cancer is still the #1 cause of death by disease for children in America. Among those who survive, 3 of 5 kids diagnosed with cancer face significant late-effects of treatment, which continue to affect survivors’ quality of life for their entire life. ECBC aims to elevate kids’ thrivership during and long after cancer treatment through our programs that provide high-quality books and reading experiences, and we need your support to sustain our efforts!
Tomorrow (Labor Day) would have been our BOOK IT charity run; however, due to increased upfront costs, we are not able to host our in-person event this year. Please check out Ethan’s video and support our virtual fundraiser! Note the “multiple of 10” theme, in honor of the upcoming 10th anniversary of Ethan’s cancer diagnosis. You can run or walk or even skip 10 (minutes, miles, laps, etc) in in the spirit of BOOK IT, and then go to the BOOK IT donation site to donate a multiple of 10. And, if you can share the donation site with 10 family or friends, please do so! THANK YOU for your support — we need you!
Ethan’s August Wishlist Fundraiser is for easy chapter books. Please check out his video!
To donate easy chapter books for patients at CHOC, click on the link below. If you’d like to make an ongoing monetary donation that goes towards our monthly targeted wishlist fundraisers, please consider becoming an ECBC Gem (which stands for Give Every Month). You can click on the link below to become a GEM, and select the monthly amount that you would like to give (or choose your own amount).
Thank you for helping hospitalized kids thrive with high-quality books and reading experiences! #augustwishlistfundraiser #easychapterbooks #books4CHOC #readthinkthrive #thrivagainstcancer
To donate a book to Ethan’s August Wishlist Fundraiser: CLICK HERE
We just received a wonderful collection of 355 new books from the family and friends of Georgia Kokenge! Georgia is the mother-in-law of longtime and relentless ECBC supporter Fenny Kokenge; before Georgia passed away, she asked for a book drive for ECBC in lieu of flowers like her husband Gene had a few years prior. We created a “Georgia Kokenge Memorial Book Drive” wish list on Amazon for Fenny to share, and as in 2021, the response was magnificent! The books were sent directly to Fenny, and she had all of the titles on display at the celebration of life that she hosted at her home (all bookplated with in memory of Georgia Kokenge stickers and alongside photos of Georgia reading to her grandkids and students). Thank you to Fenny, Jason, and the Kokenge family — we are so grateful that you wanted to honor your beautiful mom in this way. We can’t wait to get these books into the hands of the kids at CHOC who are battling cancer and other life-threatening conditions!
2023 was productive and impactful for ECBC! We gave away a total of 5816 new books to CHOC Children’s Hospital patients across our various inpatient and outpatient book gifting programs, averaging approximately 500 books per month. And our incredible group of bedside reader volunteers delivered 500+ private read-aloud sessions at patients’ bedside — these interactive sessions target literacy skills, complex thinking, and are often kids’ only non-medical related conversations of the day. We also brought our annual fundraiser, BOOK IT Racing for Reading for Hospitalized Kids, back to an in-person event for the first time since before Covid, with approximately 550 participants/volunteers and raising more than $40,000 in profit (just about equal to our current program expenses). THANK YOU to our amazing community for supporting ECBC — every monetary donation, book donation, book drive, “runner for reading”, and social media shout-out has mattered and allows ECBC to keep on going. And a special thank you to ECBC’s small but mighty Board of Directors — Susie Alexander, Anne Case, Mary Kay Viscounty, and Dr. Van Huynh — I am so deeply grateful for the commitment and contributions of each of you.
Going forward in 2024, ECBC is moving into its 9th year of book and reading programs at CHOC. This year, ECBC plans to continue to promote hospitalized kids’ cognitive health and thrivership by:
GROWING our inpatient reading program to more expert reader volunteers, more days per week, more patient floors, and greater impact on kids’ thrivership during their hospital stays. We hope to move closer to our ultimate goal of offering reading to patients daily, consistent with decades of research that shows the benefits of reading aloud at least fifteen minutes per day.
SUSTAINING our high levels of book donations across our various book gifting programs — including our gifting libraries at CHOC’s Oncology Clinic and Outpateint Infusion Center so that every child visiting the clinic or OPI can select a high-quality book to keep; our holiday book gifting such as BOO-ks for Treats on Halloween and our December holiday book gifting; our book gifting to patients in isolation via our mobile library cart; and our Read Think Thrive (RTT) Bags for patients as they are diagnosed with cancer (valued at $150/bag). We hope to someday be able to expand beyond CHOC to provide our RTT Bags to additional kids who are diagnosed with cancer — though this is a more distant goal given the significant additional funds and storage space that would be required for more inventory. Sustaining means continued monetary and book support to continue to meet our hefty book gifting numbers of approximately 5000 books ($5000) per month.
RECRUITINGmore members to join Teens Thrive Reading Group (TTRG), our virtual book club for teen and young adult cancer warriors that includes gifting Kindles, monthly books, and curated book discussion by ECBC co-founder Ethan. As this is a virtual program that is not hospital or storage space dependent, this year we hope to expand TTRG beyond CHOC to include oncology teens from around the country.
EXPANDINGour impact by providing parents with resources to help them optimally support their kids’ cognitive health through treatment with books and reading. The hope is that this can include online methods as well as eventual in-person group sessions with parents during hospital stays.
OBTAININGoffice/storage space! We have spent the past 7+ years with a small offsite storage unit and using our founder’s house as the main source of our storage (the hospital has very little storage space). As we grow our organization, we are in great need of a single space for book storage, book delivery and processing, and our volunteer activities (like filling the canvas bags for new diagnoses or sorting/stamping the hundreds of books that we gift each month). This is a huge and organizational-changing goal for ECBC that requires an additional $2000 per month to make happen. As such, we are looking for champions of ECBC’s mission who are willing to commit to a recurring monthly donation so that we can afford to make this leap and then sustain the increased operating costs. We’re hopeful that we can make this happen in 2024!
To commit to a recurring donation and become an ECBC GEM (Give Every Month), please CLICK BELOW. Select your desired level of support or enter your own amount, and check the “Make this a monthly donation” box.
Thank you for helping ECBC help Orange County’s hospitalized kids to thrive with high-quality books and reading experiences! ECBC is a public-benefit non-profit corporation, EIN 83-2934289.
A new ECBC support club was just started by students at at El Dorado High School in Yorba Linda! Club founders Leila Do (President), Mialani Tran (VP), and Madi Huang (publicity) titled their club Books for CHOC, and they received 100 student sign-ups at club rush! Similar to the ECBC support club at Foothill High School, this club aims to support the mission of ECBC by helping to provide books and literacy support materials for ECBC’s ongoing programs at CHOC Children’s Hospital. They plan to conduct one fundraiser or book raiser each semester; make holiday cards, care cards, and bookmarks; and help to decorate book donation boxes. And they will offer community service hours for students who participate in their activities. Congratulations Lelia, Mialani, and Madi on your new club; we can’t wait to see what you do!
ECBC is so grateful for the few existing ECBC support clubs, as they help to spread awareness about our cause, assist with the high volume of books ECBC needs for donations each month, and result in wonderful student-created materials (e.g., cards, bookmarks) that are creative and personal. The clubs also provide high school students with impactful leadership opportunities so they are a win-win for all!
If you or a teen you know is interested in starting a club at your own high school, please check out the information/ideas sheet below. Contact Ali at ali@ECbookclub.com to learn more.
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.
Today was our monthly re-stocking day at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and at the Oncology Clinic. Usually our bins have scattered books remaining, but today every bin from both libraries was completely empty — so we donated a total of 515 new books for infant through teenage/young adult aged patients. One of the oncology nurses mentioned 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!
Today, May 24, is also the 5 year anniversary of the launching of our inpatient program at CHOC, which includes bedside reading in patient rooms by our education/literacy expert volunteers as well as our mobile gifting book cart program. Currently, our bedside reading and mobile books cart programs run on the 5th floor, which is oncology, neurology, and multi-speciality — so many of the hospital’s sickest kids with the longest stays. With sustained and improved funding we hope to someday be able to expand this program to bring high-quality literature and reading experiences to all inpatient floors!
PLEASE help us sustain and grow our programs by joining us at BOOK IT, our annual charity walk/run in Irvine, CA! You can sign up to walk or run (as well as donate) by clicking HERE! And, please share our BOOK IT registration site with your own family and friends — https://runsignup.com/BOOKIT2023!
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, and along with our usual bedside reading and book give-aways, this week we delivered Valentine cards made by local high school students that shared “love of reading” messages with CHOC patients. THANK YOU to Foothill High School ECBC club for making these beautiful cards at your last club meeting — the patients loved getting personalized cards written by high schoolers!
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! Itinvolves these 3 simple steps:
RUN 5! Run, walk, cycle, or swim 5 miles, kilometers, or minutes.
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.
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.
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!
A HUGE thank you to Kristin Chahbazian/Studio 17 for her super generous donation to ECBC! Recently, Kristin hosted a book drive at her Tustin-based salon where she asked her clients to donate books in lieu of giving her a monetary tip. Her amazing clients donated a total of 91 new books — mostly all popular, high-interest titles! What an amazing way to inspire community to support our cause — by turning her usual monetary tips into books for kids at CHOC Children’s Hospital! We are so very grateful for Kristin’s philanthropic heart!
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:
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.
Cancer warrior and CHOC patient Blake upon receiving a Read+Think+Thrive Bag after his recent relapse with brain cancer.
