Thank you @pagesabookstore (in Manhattan Beach) for hosting a book drive for ECBC, and thank you @novelthoughts_bymax for organizing it. Forty-nine great books, mostly Halloween-themed…which will be delivered to patients at CHOC Children’s Hospital in the next few days!
It’s October, which means it’s time to turn to our Halloween book drive for our 6th annual BOO-ks for Treats event at CHOC Children’s Hospital. This is always a hard ask immediately after our BOOK IT fundraiser. However, this event has become a significant part of CHOC’s Halloween celebration, it is especially important to our founder Ethan, and the number of books that we need for it is quite hefty (approximately 600 new books). If you didn’t get a chance to donate to BOOK IT, please listen to Ethan’s video and consider purchasing a book or two from our Halloween-themed Amazon wish list. Especially since we only made it to 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.
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.
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!
This week’s storytime being aired on CHOC Children’s Hospital radio — Creepy Carrots, a story that perfectly balances scary and funny with a satisfying twist ending, wonderful for Halloween and all year long! Click below to view Ethan’s read-aloud. To donate this awesome picture book or other Halloween-themed books for ECBC’s Halloween book deliveries as part of CHOC’s reverse trick-or-treating event, CLICK HERE.
ECBC’s new mobile COOL (CHOC Oncology Outpatient Library) Cart has been wheeled around to patients visiting CHOC OPI for infusions for about two weeks now, and today I had the pleasure of re-stocking the cart with a whole bunch of awesome kid lit, including about 50% Halloween books (ranging from board books to young adult horror and everything in between). I also replenished the supply of our book bags for kids who are diagnosed with cancer —too many kids are being diagnosed right now. And I got to fulfill an individual request for a specific book series—the patient didn’t want any of the 250 books on the cart, only Mercy Watson chapter books (she has good tastes, as this is a terrific easy chapter book series). Gifting high-quality books to kids who wouldn’t otherwise have access to them truly brings me so much joy.
This week’s storytime being aired on CHOC Children’s Hospital radio — The Widow’s Broom, a clever story that evoke’s pleasurable shudders for ALL ages, perfect for Halloween and all year long! Click below to view Ethan’s read-aloud. To donate this awesome picture book or other Halloween-themed books for ECBC’s Halloween book deliveries as part of CHOC’s reverse trick-or-treating event, CLICK HERE. We are hoping for 30 copies of this book for older kids at CHOC and need a total of 500 books for this event!
Today’s storytime being aired on CHOC Children’s Hospital radio today — Room on the Broom, an all-time family favorite on Halloween and all year long! Ethan’s dad read the book aloud for old time’s sake to get Ethan in the mood for his recording…and I think they enjoyed it as much as they used to (see clip below)! Click below to view Ethan’s read-aloud. To donate this awesome picture book or other Halloween-themed books for ECBC’s Halloween book deliveries as part of CHOC’s reverse trick-or-treating event, CLICK HERE. We are hoping for 40 copies of this book and need a total of 500 books for this event!
It’s hard to believe that Halloween is just around the corner, and ECBC needs your help with Halloween-themed book donations! Annually on Halloween, ECBC has joined in with CHOC Children’s Hospital’s trick-or-treating event by hosting a “BOO-ks for Treats” booth alongside the many other booths that give away candy, small toys, and other treats. This is a super special event for ECBC co-founder Ethan, who was diagnosed with Leukemia on October 28 (2014) and began his chemotherapy on October 31, while still getting to dress up and trick-or-treat in the hospital. In 2014, there were no books at this event, so Ethan is so proud to be able to provide a literary treat as part of the loot that patients receive on Halloween.
This year, per Covid safety precautions, CHOC’s Halloween event will happen in “reverse trick-or-treating” style, with CHOC staff delivering goodies directly to each patient room. ECBC has agreed to provide Halloween book baggies to each patient, consisting of 2 age-appropriate Halloween books per bag. We also hope to deliver Halloween books to kids visiting the Outpatient Infusion Center for an infusion in the couple weeks leading up to Halloween. Which means ECBC needs 500-600 books! Please help by donating a book or two if you can! We especially need online book donations this year, as in the past years ECBC has received a few hundred of our Halloween books from school book drives and book fairs, which we are not getting this year. You can donate by clicking ON THIS LINK to our Halloween Wish List on Amazon: All books purchased from this list will be sent directly to ECBC and bookplated with donor names. THANK YOU for helping ECBC help OC’s kids who are stuck at CHOC on Halloween to thrive with awesome literature!
Sept 10. The 10th way that ECBC helps kids thrive through cancer treatment is by hosting BOO-KS for Treats at CHOC Children’s Hospital’s annual Halloween event. At this awesome event, patients and families get to trick-or-treat throughout the hospital’s second floor at booths set up by hospital departments as well as outside organizations. At the ECBC booth, patients select a high-quality Halloween-themed book from a varied collection of books for all ages from infants and toddlers to teens and young adults. It has been so fun to witness the excitement that patients have as they come upon ECBC’s booth and see that we are offering books rather than candy! This year, if CHOC cannot hold their usual trick-or-treating event due to covid restrictions, ECBC plans to deliver Halloween bags to every patient with two age-appropriate Halloween books.
To help fund Halloween-theme books for kids stuck in the hospital this Halloween, please click here: runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020. $10 covers the cost of 1 Halloween-themed book, and $500 funds 50 Halloween-themed books (the past several years, ECBC has gifted 400-450 Halloween-themed books to patients and their siblings on Halloween.). THANK YOU for supporting BOOK IT and helping to honor cancer warriors during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month!