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!
This week, ECBC and Girl Scout Troop #3115 (a small troop of just six 5th graders in Orange, CA) had our first mini packaging day of Ethan’s Read + Think +Thrive (RTT) Boxes. RTT boxes are reading kits filled with ten new books curated by age and gender of child, as well as a toolbox of art supplies and an invitation for kids to participate in Ethan’s Read+Think+Thrive Challenge (a nudge to do a little thinking about a book in the box by responding with artwork or writing). 
At the beginning of the 2016-2017 school year, Troop #3115 teamed up with ECBC to work on their Bronze Award, which is the highest honor a Girl Scout Junior can achieve. When we met this troop, the RTT boxes were a recently conceived idea of Ethan’s and in the “it would be so cool if” phase, and we had sent out just one box to a Leukemia Warrior who had just received a bone marrow transplant in San Francisco. This troop liked the idea of the reading kits, and they wanted to help us start this program. They joined ECBC at the Orange County Children’s Book Festival last September and collected more than 100 new books from authors and publishers. They also made beautiful ornaments and beanies, which they sold at our holiday book drive at SOCO and the OC Mix in December. We purchased the art supplies with the proceeds of the girls’ sales, and together we had enough books and supplies to create 10 Read+Think+Thrive Boxes. We then wrote “RTT Box decorating guidelines”, and the girls did a beautiful job decorating the sides and top flaps of the ten boxes. And then the girls joined Ethan for a packaging day, where they stamped the 100 books and wrote in donor names, sorted and packed the boxes with the books and supplies, and completed a 
Here’s Ethan’s 
Friends and Family – September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month! Please support Ethan this month by SHARING this message on social media to help us spread the word about Ethan’s efforts to build a library and read aloud program at CHOC Children’s Hospital. If you want to support Ethan & Choco’s Book Club directly, please 