Ethan & Choco's Book Club

Striving to make access to books and reading a core part of the care that SuperKids receive in the hospital, with the principal premise that literacy support for children fighting cancer and other life-threatening conditions can help promote cognitive development and social connections that are part of thriving through treatment and beyond


Leave a comment

THANK YOU Cooper!

How amazing is this??! Eagle Scout Cooper from Troop 243 of Santa Ana just completed his Eagle Scout Project, where he built two book donation boxes for ECBC (large logo decals to be affixed on the white side upon arrival). Cooper spent the last few months planning, building, painting, and adding finishing touches to the boxes (with hinges, wheels, and handles). And Cooper and family delivered the boxes yesterday, along with a terrific assortment of new books that he collected through a book drive he hosted. The boxes are well-made and beautiful!

With two additional boxes, ECBC can now have boxes available when multiple book drives are occurring simultaneously, and they will be of great help at our annual fundraiser in September which is a charity run + book drive — they will allow boxes to be placed at various bookseller/author booths for easy donation.

Thank you Cooper for choosing Ethan & Choco’s Book Club for your Eagle Scout Project and for a gift that will make a lasting impact on our nonprofit’s bookraising efforts for Orange County’s hospitalized kids!


Leave a comment

Thank you Foothill High School

THANK YOU Foothill High School families for donating books to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club last month. There is always such an abundance of information and philanthropic opportunities coming from our kids’ schools, and we so appreciate your taking the time to support ECBC’s programs at CHOC. A huge shout out to FHS’ Ethan & Choco’s Club for hosting such a successful book drive! You collected 100 new books –approximately $1000 worth — a record for a high school book drive for ECBC! Your posters, social media marketing, on-site and online options for book donations, and your homemade brownie incentive all paid off!

If teens are interested in starting an Ethan & Choco Club at their own high school, refer to/print flyer below or email ali@ECbookclub.com.


Leave a comment

THANK YOU Hewes Middle School!

THANK YOU to Hewes Middle School families for the 430 new books that you donated to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club! This was Hewes’ second year hosting their own school book drive, and they beat their last year’s total by almost 200 books! (And, this was our third highest- one-time donation from a school, ever!). This fantastic donation included books of all types for patients ages infant through teen/young adult, and it is equivalent to one month of ECBC’s donations to CHOC, so it is so super helpful!

A special thank you to Mrs. Magnusen’s class for winning the class competition by donating the most books, and thank you to Mrs. Wagstaff’s and Ms. Moffat’s classes for also donating significant numbers. And a HUGE thank you to Hewes Leadership teacher Dean Jennings for leading the effort and for the work of the leadership class in promoting the book drive, making promotional posters, and counting and bookplating the books. We appreciate you!


Leave a comment

THANK YOU to these amazing 7th graders!

A HUGE thank you to these eight (one is missing from photo) seventh graders at Grace Lutheran School in Huntington Beach for choosing ECBC for their service spring project for a second year in a row! They ran a terrific school-wide book drive, including hosting a book donation table for a week+ before and after school, making flyers and book collection boxes, creating their own promotional video/commercial to share online, and sorting/counting all of the books. In sum, they collected a total of 217 new books for kids of all ages, which is especially impressive given this school’s super small student population. Also, a huge shout out to Joi Vutpakdi for rallying the kids behind our cause as well as all of her work to help the kids make their book drive a success. And of course, thank you to all the Grace Lutheran families for all of your generous book donations. THANK YOU GRACE LUTHERAN!


Leave a comment

THANK YOU KRISTIN AND STUDIO 17!

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!


Leave a comment

MOST AWESOME School Donation To Date!

A HUGE thank you to Rossmoor Elementary School for donating 531 NEW BOOKS to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club! This terrific school has a Harry Potter style house system for Knights — where the four Knight houses are engaged in friendly competition in academic and non-academic areas throughout the year, including philanthropic support of the community. What a wonderful way to create school community and motivate students! ECBC was so fortunate to be the recipient of their most recent community outreach project, where donation boxes were put out at the school for each of the Knight houses, and students purchased books to contribute by either ordering off an ECBC-provided Amazon wish list or buying books at their school book fair. We are blown away by the response, which amounts to the largest single book donation from a school that we have received and will provide 2-3 months of books for our inpatient and outpatient programs at CHOC Children’s Hospital. Congrats to House of Lancelot for contributing the most books at more than 200 new books donated!

THANK YOU Rossmoor families for rallying behind our cause. Thank you also to Kristin Moushon for thinking of ECBC and connecting us with your school. And, a special thank you to Rossmoor Principal Amy Coltey for your commitment to making community outreach part of your school’s culture and for all you did to make this book drive a great success! Go Knights!


Leave a comment

THANK YOU CARTERSTRONGFOREVER!

A huge THANK YOU to the CarterStrongForever community for yet another amazing book drive!
We just received 121 awesome books that were donated in honor of Carter — all selected from a specially curated list of books n memory of Carter because of their themes of kindness, humor, baseball, and superheros. CarterStrong bookplates have been affixed to all books, and we can’t wait to get these amazing titles into patients’ hands! Thank you Jamie and CarterStrongForever family and friends for your ongoing support and for allowing ECBC to play a small role in helping to keep Carter’s impact going strong.