It’s book delivery day at CHOC Outpatient Infusion (OPI) Center and CHOC’s Oncology Clinic! We refilled our gifting libraries with approximately 300 new books for infants through teen/young adults, which included a ton of Halloween-theme books for kids who visit Oncology or OPI in the next week. We also re-stocked inventory of our Read + Think + Thrive Bags for kids newly diagnosed with cancer (which amount to too many diagnoses this month). And, we’re looking forward to our large Halloween book delivery for CHOC’s reverse trick or treating event next week! If you want to get in a last minute donation, you can do so by clicking HERE.
Tag Archives: BOOKS4CHOC
Halloween Book Drive for CHOC Children’s Hospital!
It’s October 1st, which means it’s time to turn from our annual BOOK IT fundraiser to our 5th annual Halloween book drive — a difficult thing to do right on the heels of BOOK IT, but usually BOOK IT ends on race day in the first week of September, not on September 30. We need approximately 500-600 books for patients who are stuck in the hospital on Halloween, as well as for kids who are visiting CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center and the Oncology clinic around that time. Please listen to Ethan’s video and consider donating a book if you didn’t get a chance to contribute to BOOK IT! Before Covid we received most our books for this from school book fairs and school book drives, which isn’t happening right now, so we could use all the support we can get to make this happen! Especially since we only made it to almost halfway of our fundraising goal for BOOK IT, your help with this is even more important. Patients LOVE getting high-quality Halloween themed books along with their usual candy and trinkets, so we absolutely LOVE being able to provide “literary candy” for the kids! All books purchased from this wish list will go directly to ECBC, and bookplates with donor names will go on every book. THANK YOU!
CLICK HERE FOR AMAZON WISH LIST LINK.
Please consider supporting ECBC in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month!
This photo popped up in my Facebook feed today — from September 1, 2015 — the first day of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month six years ago and also the day that Ethan returned to school for 3rd grade after missing all of second grade. He had just finished the hardest part of his 3.5 year battle with Leukemia. While he still had a ways to go at this point with 2.5 more years of chemo, he was kicking cancer’s butt — loving school, playing tennis and golf, and reading voraciously into so many fictional and nonfictional worlds. This photo was also just a few months before we founded Ethan & Choco’s Book Club (ECBC), where Ethan and I committed to making sure that kids undergoing treatment at CHOC, especially life-altering illness such as cancer, received the same benefits from books and reading that he did while battling Leukemia.
ECBC has come a long way since its inception — with numerous inpatient and outpatient reading programs for patients of all ages and gifting thousands of books a year. BUT we need your help in order to sustain our book gifting programs and re-launch our inpatient programs in October (we were just given the green light to bring our volunteers back to CHOC, woo hoo!). We are highly dependent on our annual fundraiser, BOOK IT, which provides the majority of the funds ECBC needs to run its programs. In the spirit of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month , please consider supporting thrivership for kid cancer warriors by donating to our online fundraiser. We are aiming to raise enough funds to get us to next September 2022, when we are hoping to host a full BOOK IT with a return of our in-person charity runs and book drive.
Here’s how you can help:
- Make a monetary donation online at www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2021
- Become a “fundraiser”, with your own fundraiser name, monetary goal, and unique URL that can be used to send people directly to your fundraiser page. Click here to set up your fundraising page.
- Donate a book directly. Click here to access the BOOK IT 2021 Amazon Wish List. All books purchased from this list will be automatically sent to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club.
- Conduct your own book drive. If you wish to collect books on your own or conduct your own book drive with your family/friends/workplace for subsequent in-person donation, please email ali@ECbookclub.com We will send you a link to a separate wish list that you can share with your community and that let’s you specify the address to ship the books.
- Help us spread the word by sharing the link to the donation site: http://www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2021.
Thank you for helping Orange County’s hospitalized kids thrive through treatment!
PLEASE support BOOK IT 2021 with an online donation!
PLEASE HELP Support BOOK IT 2021!
We’re currently running our annual fundraising push — which is, again for a second year, online only. We so wish it could be through our in-person charity run and book drive, though that was not possible due to the ongoing uncertainty around potential Covid-19 restrictions at the time that event decisions had to be made. HOWEVER, ECBC NEEDS YOUR HELP NOW MORE THAN EVER! Our costs are way up, since outgoing book donations actually increased during Covid, while incoming book donations have been way down over the past year and a half. Additionally, ECBC just received the green light to resume our bedside reading and library programs on the inpatient side of CHOC on October 15th. Which is AWESOME news — but we need enough funds to sustain the new book gifting activities we are doing with CHOC outpatient as well as re-launch our programs that we were running pre-Covid. We are aiming to raise enough funds to get us to September 2022, when we are hoping to host a full BOOK IT with a return of our in-person charity runs, book drive, and celebration of thrivership against cancer through books and reading!
Here are five ways you can support the BOOK IT 2021 virtual fundraiser:
- Make a monetary donation online at www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2021
- Become a “fundraiser”, with your own fundraiser name, monetary goal, and unique URL that can be used to send people directly to your fundraiser page. Click here to set up your fundraising page.
- Donate a book directly. Click here to access the BOOK IT 2021 Amazon Wish List. All books purchased from this list will be automatically sent to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club.
- Conduct your own book drive. If you wish to collect books on your own or conduct your own book drive with your family/friends/workplace for subsequent in-person donation, please email ali@ECbookclub.com We will send you a link to a separate wish list that you can share with your community and that let’s you specify the address to ship the books.
- Help us spread the word by sharing the link to the donation site: http://www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2021.
Thank you for helping Orange County’s hospitalized kids thrive thrive through treatment!
CHOC Outpatient Oncology Book Delivery Day!
CHOC Outpatient Infusion Center and Oncology Clinic book re-stocking day! 200 new books to be offered to oncology kiddos whenever they are visiting the hospital for a a chemo infusion or check-up. PLEASE help us to sustain this and other ECBC book and reading programs at CHOC by supporting our annual fundraiser — this year online only, at www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2021
Please Support BOOK IT 2021, ECBC’s Annual Fundraiser!
It’s that time of year for Ethan & Choco’s Book Club to do our annual fundraising push. We wish it could be through our in-person charity run and book drive. However, due to the ongoing uncertainty around potential Covid-19 restrictions at the time that event decisions had to be made, ECBC will not be hosting our in-person event again this year. We are, however, conducting the virtual fundraising and book drive component of BOOK IT, which we hope will receive a strong response so that ECBC can continue to sustain and grow its book and reading programs at CHOC Children’s Hospital.
We need your support now more than ever! Our costs are way up (since outgoing book donations actually increased during Covid), while incoming book donations have been way down over the past year and a half. We are aiming to raise enough funds to get us to September 2022, when we are hoping to host a full BOOK IT with a return of our in-person charity runs, book drive, and celebration of thrivership against cancer through books and reading!
Here are five ways you can support the BOOK IT 2021 virtual fundraiser:
- Make a monetary donation online at www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2021
- Become a “fundraiser”, with your own fundraiser name, monetary goal, and unique URL that can be used to send people directly to your fundraiser page. Click here to set up your fundraising page.
- Donate a book directly. Click here to access the BOOK IT 2021 Amazon Wish List. All books purchased from this list will be automatically sent to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club.
- Conduct your own book drive. If you wish to collect books on your own or conduct your own book drive with your family/friends/workplace for subsequent in-person donation, please email ali@ECbookclub.com We will send you a link to a separate wish list that you can share with your community and that let’s you specify the address to ship the books.
- Help us spread the word by sharing the link to the donation site: http://www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2021.
Thank you for helping Orange County’s hospitalized kids thrive thrive through treatment!
Outpatient Oncology Delivery Day!
Re-stocking day at CHOC Children’s Hospital oncology clinic and Outpatient Infusion Center(OPI). A few hundred high quality books so kids of all ages infants through teens can be offered a book whenever they visit outpatient oncolgoy whether it be for a routine visit of chemo at OPI. We also had the pleasure of delivering this specially curated bag of books for a middle school patient who inspired his buddies to conduct a school-wide book drive –the personal deliveries that are base don kids’ actual reading interest are always so fun!
THANK YOU Grace Lutheran School!
A HUGE thank you to Grace Lutheran School for their donation of 200 new, fantastic books of all types, ranging from board books to picture books and chapter books to informational texts, graphic novels and teen literature. ECBC is especially grateful for the hard work of these 6th grade boys, who organized and conducted the school-wide book drive as their spring service project. The boys made flyers to distribute to school families, created their own video/commercial to share with all of the classes, made book collection boxes, ran book collection tables for the 12 day that they held the book drive. This is the first (and only) book donation that we received from a school during the 2020-2021 school year, so we are deeply appreciative. Thank you Grace Lutheran and especially this crew of terrific boys!.
April Book Delivery!
April’s book delivery to ECBC’s library cart and shelves at CHOC outpatient oncology clinic and infusion center!
Silent Auction Benefiting ECBC!
Please check out ECBC’s amazing bedside reader Fenny’s silent auction, this Sunday on Facebook from 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM. She is auctioning off 20 beautiful succulent arrangements! Visit https://www.facebook.com/fennysflowers to bid!
Fenny is using all proceeds to purchase books for ECBC and kids battling cancer! THANK YOU FENNY, YOU ARE THE BEST!
Here’s her post on FB, with pictures of each of the succulent items she is auctioning.
Today’s book delivery!
Today’s delivery to CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center, Oncology Clinic, more books for our teen book club, and re-stocking book bags for kids newly diagnosed with cancer!Lots of books going to lots of hospitalized kids! #readthinkthrive #ecbc #thriveagainstcancer
Thank you Baum Orthodontics!
A HUGE thank you to Baum Orthodontics and patients for this totally awesome donation of almost 300 new books of ALL types, from board books and picture books to graphic novels and awesome nonfiction! A fantastic first donation of the year!! These will provide most of what we need for our donations this Friday to CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center and also to CHOC’s Oncology clinic. We appreciate your support so much, and boy does it make a difference right now!
First Book Delivery of the Year, and a New Gifting Library!
This week ECBC delivered our first books of the year, 360 of them — 168 books to re-stock our library cart at the Outpatient Infusion Center and 192 books to fill up our newly established Gifting Library at CHOC’s outpatient oncology clinic. Now, every child visiting CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center and the Oncology Clinic will be offered a new, high-quality and age-appropriate book at their visits.
The cost to replenish these gifting libraries is about $3000/month, which we hope we can sustain but depend 100% on donations in order to do so. To help with a monetary donation, click here. Currently, we are lowest on board books and Spanish books, with no backup supply at all. To donate either of these types of books, click here (board books) and here (Spanish). We also are very low on information/fact books (click here to purchase off the wish list), graphic novels (click here), and teen/young adult books (click here).
Thank you for helping kids thrive through treatment with high-quality books and reading!
Outpatient gifting cart 
Gifting library at CHOC ‘s oncology clinic
HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM Ethan & Choco’s Book Club!
2020 was hard all around, including for tiny nonprofits like ECBC. When Covid hit in March, we had to stop all our inpatient volunteer-based reading activities, which are the backbone of ECBC programming and relatively low cost. We weren’t able to hold our in-person BOOK IT charity run, which is ECBC’s only formal fundraiser of the year. And, our ongoing large book donations have completely stopped due to the lack of onsite school book fairs and other in-person group events. That being said, 2020 was an opportunity for ECBC to grow in other ways, including by:
- Forming our initial Board of Directors comprised of 8 amazing board members, and having our first two Board meetings in July and November.
- Filing taxes for the first time, with 2019 being our first year as an approved 501(c)3 public-benefit corporation.
- Hosting a fully virtual BOOK IT fundraising campaign, which helped to expand our community of supporters and raised enough funds for ECBC to resume some of our covid-modified programs upon hospital approval.
- Converting our book box program to book bags per new infectious disease requirements (concerns about cardboard); having our first “mega bag packaging day” and finally having bulk inventory for delivery (thank you to local girl scouts), and as of September putting in place systematic delivery of Read Think Thrive Bags (which contain a mini library of 10 high-quality books curated by age and gender of the recipient) to every new oncology diagnosis at CHOC Children’s Hospital.
- Launching a new outpatient oncology book gifting program and library cart, which involves offering high-quality age-appropriate books to all kids entering CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center. Per covid-based restrictions on the inpatient side, this shift to book gifting through outpatient has led to a new and terrific partnership with outpatient oncology staff.
- Gifting significant numbers of wonderful holiday-themed books on Halloween and for the December holidays — to CHOC inpatients, outpatients, and patients and siblings living at Miracle Manor.
Going forward in 2021, ECBC hopes to continue to promote hospitalized kids’ cognitive health and thrivership by:
- Sustaining our ongoing outpatient gifting library cart and our Read Think Thrive Bags for new cancer diagnoses
- Expanding our outpatient book gifting to the CHOC oncology clinic, so that every child that visits the clinic will be also offered a book (not just those visiting the infusion center).
- Formally launching Teens Thrive Reading Group, our new virtual book club for teen cancer patients and survivors that gifts Kindles and monthly e-books to participants. We will be recruiting participants from CHOC’s AYA (adolescent and young adult) group, and we will also work on online methods to recruit outside of CHOC teen cancer warriors who might be interested in participating.
- Developing ways to provide parents with information and resources to help them optimally support their kids’ cognitive health and thrivership 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.
- Resuming and growing our inpatient reading programs as soon as our volunteers are allowed to enter the hospital again. Pre-covid, we were preparing to expand to more days per week, more patient floors, and our first bit of physical patient-use space to build a reading nook. As covid restrictions are lifted, we will be eager to return to growing our impact on kids’ thrivership during their hospital stays with rich literature-based reading programs.
A HUGE thank you to our amazing community for supporting ECBC during this especially difficult time — every monetary donation, book donation, and social media shout-out has mattered and we are deeply grateful. To start off 2021 with a monetary donation, please CLICK HERE. To donate a book off our wish list, CLICK HERE.
Thank you for helping ECBC help hospitalized kids to thrive with high-quality books and reading experiences!
CHOC Holiday Book Deliveries
We just completed the last of our holiday book donations with these deliveries to CHOC inpatient oncology and neurology kids on the 5th floor as well as for CHOC’s outpatient oncology kiddos visiting the infusion center and the clinic. Three hundred wonderful holiday-themed books that will hopefully result in lots of reading and reading aloud! A huge thank you to all our amazing donors!
Storytime with Ethan & Choco: Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins
Happy 1st night of Hanukkah from ECBC! Here’s this week’s storytime with Ethan & Choco: Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins, a Hanukkah family favorite and a wonderful read-aloud for all. To donate this book or another holiday book for CHOC patients, below are the links to our wish lists. We still need many books for our upcoming holiday book deliveries to CHOC and Miracle Manor!
CLICK HERE for CHOC Wish List.
CLICK HERE for Miracle Manor Wish List
Thank you for helping hospitalized kids thrive through the holidays with books and reading!
ECBC’s First Holiday Book Donation of the Season
We just delivered our first of several holiday book donations to CHOC Children’s Hospital! This one went to the Outpatient Infusion Center, where kids (largely oncology patients) spend a couple hours to all day for infusions– we re-stocked our outpatient library cart with almost 200 December holiday-themed books! We just love spreading some literary joy with high-quality books that look fun enough to get kids to put their screens down for just a bit!
We have a few more holiday book gifting commitments in the coming weeks — including to CHOC’s inpatient side and to Miracle Manor (Miracles for Kids’ subsidized housing for CHOC patients and families). Our deadlines for delivery are coming up in the 10 -12 days and we’ll need to purchase books soon to fill gaps — so PLEASE donate now/soon if you can!!!
Click HERE to donate a book for patients and siblings living at Miracle Manor (books on this list are selected/curated for specific kids based on each child’s age and interest).
Click HERE to to donate a book for kids who are inpatient at CHOC Children’s Hospital.
THANK YOU for helping ECBC to help hospitalized kids thrive through the holidays with high-quality books and reading!
ECBC needs holiday books for kids living at Miracle Manor!
PLEASE HELP! ECBC needs some help so that we can provide literary treats for patients and siblings living at Miracle Manor, which is Miracles for Kids’ subsidized housing for CHOC patients (most of whom are currently battling cancer). Last year we were invited to attend their Christmas party, and we were thrilled to be able to provide storytime and books for every child living here. There’s no party this year per Covid, but we have promised the books! Our Miracle Manor wish list on Amazon has titles that have been specifically selected to match the age and interests of every child — we need every book on the list to be able to gift to every child! Delivery happens in 10 days — please help if you can! We also still need a huge number of books for our CHOC holiday book deliveries — see that link below too. THANK YOU for helping hospitalized kids to thrive through the holidays with books and reading!
CLICK HERE for Miracle Manor Wish List.
CLICK HERE for CHOC Hospital WIsh List:
All books purchased from these lists will be sent directly to ECBC and bookplated with donor names.
It’s Giving Tuesday! Please help!
ECBC needs December holiday-themed books for our December book deliveries to kids at CHOC Children’s Hospital. Rather than making a monetary donation, please consider donating just one book from our Holiday Book Wish (link below). All books purchased from this list will be sent directly to ECBC and nameplates with donor name. THANK YOU in advance for supporting ECBC’s gifting programs which have been greatly amplified during Covid (because we still haven’t been able to run our volunteer-based inpatient reading programs).
Click HERE to access the holiday book wish list and donate.
BOO-ks for Treats Delivered!
Today ECBC delivered 200 bags of Halloween “BOO-KS for Treats” (500 books) to CHOC Children’s Hospital for their reverse trick-or-treating event on Friday. We delivered another 100 books to CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion for our library cart, so that kids coming in for infusions will also receive Halloween books. We will miss participating in CHOC’s usual trick-or-treating event but we are so happy to be able to contribute to CHOC’s Halloween celebration this year. A big THANK YOU to everyone who donated Halloween-themed books, and a huge thank you to Behr Paint for conducting a corporate book drive and donating about 115 of the books. And, a special thank you to the Antonius Family, Bill and Royce Bellaty, Enderle Center, Fenny’s Flowers, Peter Royston, and the Stahl Family for your BOOK IT2020 donations that were allocated specifically to funding Halloween books — your donations were used to purchase the remainder of the books that we needed for this event (all book-plated with you names on them). Finally, thank you to our awesome Board members and Programs Committee Mary Kay Viscounty, Sandy Tweedt, and Anne Case for your help in coordinating the Behr book drive and assembling all supplies!
