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

Tag Archives: BOOKS4CHOC


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THANK YOU Hicks Canyon, Arroyo, and Guin Foss!

THANK YOU to these Tustin Unified School District elementary schools for hosting book drives for ECBC last week: Hicks Canyon, Arroyo, and Guin Foss. All three schools collected books for Ethan & Choco’s Book Club as part of their fall book fairs, and all three schools do this regularly, 1-2 times per year alongside their book fairs. ECBC is currently donating 500-600 new books per month to CHOC patients, and most of these books come from school book drives. So it is a big deal to have “regulars” whom we can count on for incoming books! A special shout out to Hicks Canyon parent Tina Jussal, Guin Foss Librarian (and ECBC Board Member) Susie Alexander, and Arroyo parent Claudia Rounaghi for coordinating your school’s book drive efforts!

Please contact ECBC (ali@ECbookclub.com) if your school would like to partner with ECBC and run your own book drive! There are meaningful ways to involve students as desired, especially if your school’s ASB/leadership class would like to take it on!


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Outpatient Book Delivery Day!

Today was outpatient book delivery day! ECBC re-stocked our gifting cart at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and our mini library at the Oncology Clinic — gifting a total of 500 new books for patients of all ages, infant through teen/young adult. ECBC also delivered 15 Read Think Thrive Bags, our book bags filled with ten new books and book crafting supplies — to be gifted to patients who are newly diagnosed with cancer. This typical outpatient delivery amounts to a cash value of approximately $7500 and wouldn’t be possible without the support of our community via our annual fundraiser and ongoing throughout the year.

Next up: We are going to need a HUGE amount of Halloween-themed books! Please keep an eye out for our Halloween book drive, or consider hosting your own Halloween book drive at your school, business, philanthropy group, or book club!


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THANK YOU BAUM ORTHO!

Thank you Baum Orthodontics for these 117 new books! Your ongoing book drive and regular donations are such a blessing for ECBC!

Baum Ortho collects books regularly for ECBC, in part by offering patient families deals on their retainer replacements if they donate new books. How AWESOME is that?! ECBC is in need of more partnerships like this with our community to help keep up with the 500-600 new books that we provide to CHOC each month. Please contact us (ali@ECbookclub.com) if you’d like to encourage your clients/customers/patients/community to donate new books and become an ECBC book donation site!

Community partnerships like this one with Baum Ortho are passive bookraising for ECBC and make such a difference for our tiny nonprofit!


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It’s Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Today is September 1, marking the start of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. EVERY DAY, 47 KIDS IN THE U.S. ARE DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER. Every day, 47 families’ lives are flipped completely upside down. If you haven’t signed up FOR BOOK IT yet, please consider joining us on Labor Day in Irvine to help ECBC continue to do our part in helping kids to THRIVE against cancer with high-quality books and reading experiences. In addition to the 1K and 5K walk/runs with t-shirts and medals, there will be local authors and booksellers, terrific food trucks, raffle prizes, and FREE fun for kids including bounce house, face painting, balloon artist, caricature drawings, and photo booth with free prints!

3 DAYS TO GO! PLEASE SIGN UP AT RUNSIGNUP.COM/BOOKIT2023


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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!


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THANK YOU Grace Lutheran School!

Thank you Grace Lutheran School, Huntington Beach, for hosting a third consecutive book drive for ECBC and collecting 142 terrific books! A special shout out to the awesome middle school students who conducted the book drive — including making posters and collection boxes as well as manning a book donation table for a week before and after school. Also, thank you to Joi Vutpakdi for rallying the kids behind our cause and for her work to help the kids make their book drive a success. THANK YOU GRACE LUTHERAN!


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Thank you Tavi’s Fairy Festival!

THANK YOU to Tavi’s Fairy Festival for the 81 books you collected/donated as a tribute to Tavi’s love of books and all things fancy! We can’t wait to get these books into the hands of kids at CHOC are are battling life-altering illnesses.  Thank you also to Whitney Fink for organizing this book drive as part of this beautiful celebration of Tavi’s life!


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Largest Outpatient Delivery Day To Date!

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!