Striving to make access to books and reading a core part of the care that kids receive in the hospital, with the premise that literacy support for children fighting cancer and other life-altering conditions can help promote cognitive health and social connections that are part of thriving through treatment and beyond
September 15. The 15th way that ECBC supports cognitive health for hospitalized kids is by making sure that we always have a supply of high-quality graphic novels to offer to patients–whether it be on the mobile book cart on the inpatient side of CHOC, via our Outpatient Infusion Center deliveries, through our book boxes for new cancer diagnoses, or at special events. Graphic novels tend to be criticized as inadequate literature for kids to read. However, high quality graphic novels have won prestigious ALA (American Library Association) awards for their terrific stories, deep themes, and wonderful illustrations. And, comprehending graphic novels where readers must construct meaning from individual graphic panels into a coherent whole is a cognitively complex activity that helps to develop good thinking. Also, good stories in graphic novel formats require the same comprehension strategies required for stories written in prose, such as predicting and inferring, so they are an opportunity to practice comprehension skills. Perhaps even more importantly, graphic texts can be a powerful bridge for reluctant readers to other text types, so they are a great starting point for reluctant/struggling readers that often end up turning kids into avid readers. Finally, they’re so popular — they are the best at getting the patients to put their screens down to read!
ECBC can’t keep graphic novels on any of our shelves, as they go immediately! To fund graphic novels for all of our programs, go to runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020. $10-$20 funds one graphic novel, $100 refills the couple graphic novel bins on our book cart for OPI deliveries, and $500 re-stocks the graphic novel shelf on our inpatient mobile book cart. THANK YOU for supporting BOOK IT2020 and helping to honor cancer warriors during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month!
September 14. The 14th way that ECBC helps hospitalized kids thrive through treatment is by reading aloud high-quality literature with good narrative structure, strong psychological landscapes (i.e., characters with emotions), rich vocabulary, and significant themes. Often times when books are read aloud to kids, deliberate choices are not made that pertain to the quality of the book, but when kids listen to and talk about books with these characteristics, their thinking is substantially enhanced— cumulatively so over days, months, and years. This can be especially powerful for hospitalized kids and cancer warriors who often miss out on school, have fewer opportunities for literature-based instruction, and have conditions or are receiving treatment that affects their cognitive functioning.
To help ECBC boost patients’ cognitive health by providing high-quality literature, click here: runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020. Donate $20 to fund one bedside reading book, $50 for five gifting library books, and $600 for one month’s supply of high-quality books for the bedside reading read-aloud wagons. THANK YOU for helping to honor cancer warriors and hospitalized kids during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month!
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!
A HUGE shout out to Foothill High School senior Evan Antonius for the awesome boxes of books you delivered last night! Evan conducted his own BOOK IT book drive, collecting books that we are asking for on our Amazon BOOK IT 2020 wish list, so they are all high-quality books that ECBC needs for specific programs and patients. Evan has also been holding his own fundraiser on our virtual BOOK IT campaign website, and he’s almost 2/3 of the way to his fundraising goal. THANK YOU Evan for taking the initiative to support reading for hospitalized kids, many of whom are battling cancer. We appreciate you so much! To support Evan’s fundraising efforts, go to: https://runsignup.com/Race/53767/Donate/h2mGILClkH4yt4eG
Sept 9. The 9th way that ECBC helps kids thrive through cancer treatment is by gifting personally curated sets of books to patients and siblings at Miracle Manor’s December holiday party (Miracle Manor is a home subsidized by Miracles For Kids for low-income CHOC families with critically ill children). While it is unclear whether ECBC will be able to lead the storytime with Santa this year per Covid restrictions, we are super excited to be able to help Miracle Manor kids celebrate the holidays with beautiful high-quality literature.
At Miracle Manor’s December 2019 holiday party
To help fund the books needed for this, go to go to https://runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020— $10 provides one gifting library books and $50 provides five gifting library books. THANK YOU for supporting BOOK IT and helping to honor cancer warriors during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month!
Sept 8: The 8th way that ECBC helps hospitalized kids thrive through treatment is by broadcasting a story time each week through Seacrest Studios, CHOC’s radio station. The radio read-aloud show began when all of ECBC’s volunteer programs were halted due to COVID, since Ethan could record the show from home and send it to CHOC to be aired.Although the radio show couldn’t come close to replacing our amazing bedside readers, it at least ensured a bit of access to good stories at a time when safety precautions allowed for no visitors or diversions. To check out Ethan’s story time that was aired today at CHOC, click the image below. To support Ethan’ radio show, go to www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020 and donate $20 to cover the cost of a new high-quality picture book that will be used for a future storytime. THANK YOU for supporting BOOK IT and helping to honor cancer warriors during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month!
Today was supposed to be BOOK IT!, ECBC’s only annual fundraiser that has provided the majority of the funds and books for all of our book and reading programs at CHOC Children’s Hospital! Due to Covid, we couldn’t have today’s race. But we are conducting a virtual book drive…because hospitalized kids still need books and reading! If you haven’t yet donated to BOOK IT, please consider doing so today! Here are 4 reasons why you should donate:
To help ECBC be able to launch our covid-modified programs later this month
To help honor cancer warriors during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
To ensure that ECBC can resume its regular programs at CHOC as soon as it is safe to do so
To ensure that we can keep on going until BOOK IT 2021 next September!
We will continue the BOOK IT 2020 fundraising campaign through the month of September, alongside our daily effort to contribute to Childhood Cancer Awareness Month by sharing each day a way that ECBC helps ECBC hospitalized kids to thrive. Here’s way #7, for September 7th:
Through its various programs, ECBC directly helps kids thrive through treatment — cognitively, socially, and emotionally. That’s what most of our “30 ways” highlight — the various specific ways. Another way that ECBC helps kids to thrive through treatment is by providing our local cancer warriors a cause to get behind that is about their own cognitive health and that they can control — which can be super empowering! Over the last couple of years, we have had kids in the midst of battle conduct their own book drives for ECBC, help their school run a book drive, raise funds for ECBC, and run in BOOK IT. We love this so much!
ECBC couldn’t do what we do without the support of our community, including our amazing cancer warriors. To contribute to our virtual book drive, go to runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020. Please consider donating at least the amount you would have paid for your family to run today ($40/person). Even better, use the same link to start a fundraising team for the remainder of September.
THANK YOU for helping ECBC to keep helping hospitalized kids to thrive through treatment with books and reading!
Sept 6: The 6th way that bedside readers help hospitalized kids thrive through treatment, in addition to providing quality social interactions (see Sept 1 post), is by boosting children’s thinking and literacy skills. Reading is fundamental to cognitive health and thrivership for all kids, yet it is especially important for cancer warriors who are often missing significant school and literature-based instruction, have a type of cancer that directly impairs cognition, and/or are receiving types of treatment that have long-term cognitive impacts. ECBC’s expert bedside readers know how to model and scaffold good thinking while reading aloud, so that the reading session is not just a one-way interaction but a two-way dialogue with reader and listener together predicting, making text-based connections, and thinking deeply about the text.
To support ECBC’s bedside reading program, go to www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020 — donate $20 for one bedside reading book, or donate $600 for a full wagon of bedside reading books which are rotated monthly (30 books).
The 4th way that ECBC helps hospitalized kids thrive through treatment is by providing kids at CHOC who are newly diagnosed with cancer a Read Think Thrive (RTT) Bag. The RTT Bag is a canvas tote bag filled with 10 high quality books curated by age and gender of the child, a “Read Think Thrive Challenge” with art supplies and blank literary-themed materials (i.e., blank books, blank comic books) to inspire recipients to respond creatively to the books, and various other ECBC/book themed items (e.g., bookmark, book light). The bag comes with a letter from Ethan that shares his experience with reading through his cancer treatment and encourages kids to make reading (and thinking/talking about books) part of their cancer journey. Ethan reminds the recipient that the tote bag that the supplies come in can be used in future hospital visits to always bring books with them to the hospital. The hope is that this Bag will help cancer warriors make books and reading part of their everyday tools that help them thrive through treatment.
To support ECBC’s Read Think Thrive Bag program, go to https://runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020. $30 funds the art supplies that come in the bag, and $125 sponsors one filled book bag with art supplies, books and other items. THANK YOU for supporting BOOK IT and helping to honor cancer warriors during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month!
ECBC helps hospitalized kids thrive through treatment by…
September 2: Through ECBC’s mobile gifting library cart, ECBC’s volunteers gift books to CHOC patients who are in isolation and not able to leave their room to enjoy other areas of the hospital (i.e., the radio station, movie theatre room, Family Resource Center). The cart has high-quality books for all kids from infants through teens and young adults that range in topic and genre to meet kids’ varying interests and reading levels.
To support ECBC’s mobile library cart for patients in isolation, CLICK HERE — $10 provides a new gifting library book, $50 provides five new books for the cart, and $5000 re-stocks the entire cart!
THANK YOU for supporting BOOK IT and helping to honor cancer warriors during this month!
If you haven’t yet supported ECBC’s BOOK IT 2020 Virtual Book Drive, please consider doing so now! ECBC was born out of Ethan’s experience at CHOC Children’s Hospital while battling Leukemia — where he noticed that books and reading were so grossly missing from patients’ lives at the hospital yet felt so deeply that they helped him to escape, connect, think, and thrive through treatment. Please help ECBC keep on going with its mission to bring books and reading to all hospitalized kids and especially oncology patients — we can’t do this without our community’s support!
While ECBC’s volunteer programs at CHOC have been on hold due to Covid, we are gearing up to launch Covid-modified programs that don’t require volunteers (with the awesome help of CHOC’s outpatient oncology nursing team). This includes delivering ECBC’s Read Think Thrive Book Bags to every cancer diagnosis (via the nurses, rather than our volunteers);establishing a mobile gifting library cart on the outpatient side to deliver a book to oncology patients whenever they visit OPI for an infusion or the oncology clinic; building a virtual book club for teen cancer warriors that includes giving them Kindles and monthly e-books; and gifting themed books to patients during the holidays (including Halloween, December holidays). To proceed with these plans, and also to sustain our regular programs once we are given the green light to bring our volunteers back, we desperately need to raise more funds!
The BOOK IT 2020 fundraising campaign was set to end Monday September 7th, which was the original date of the onsite BOOK IT 2020 run. Since we have raised only 1/3 of our goal and we are committed to our new covid-inspired plans with CHOC, we are extending the virtual campaign through the month of September. In honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, each day of September we will share one specific way that ECBC helps kids to thrive — in hopes that you will pick one way that resonates with you and help fund it! Please help if you can — ECBC needs it more than ever, and so do the kiddos stuck in the hospital (without the usual volunteers and diversions per covid rules!).
Here’s way #1 that ECBC helps hospitalized kids thrive through treatment:
Through our amazing inpatient bedside reading program, ECBC gets kids to put down their screen for 15-30 minutes in order to connect with a bedside reader who is 100% present, engaging , and eager to have a literature-inspired social interaction.
To support ECBC’s bedside reading program, please CLICK HERE — $20 provides a hardcover (easily cleanable) book for our Lending Library and bedside reading program.
THANK YOU for supporting BOOK IT and helping to honor cancer warriors during this month!
A HUGE thank you to our AWESOME community for joining us last Sunday at Ethan & Choco’s Book Club’s (ECBC) 2nd annual charity run and book drive —BOOK IT! Racing for Reading for Hospitalized Kids! Approximately 400 racers (and nearly 500 total including volunteers, sponsors, vendors, and supporters) came to walk, run, fundraise, book-raise, and make our event an amazing success! The amount of funds raised is still to be determined, but it is looking like we will have a net profit that exceeds our profit from BOOK IT 2018. The book drive component of the event was also super successful: the online pre-event book drive resulted in over 95 hardcover book donations and 132 Read+Think+Thrive book box donations for kids diagnosed with cancer, and the onsite book drive yielded hundreds more new books. What a great (and needed) boost to our Lending and Gifting libraries at CHOC! Beyond the funds and books raised, many made their mark on the Handprint Wall with their book recommendation for the CHOC library, jumped in the bounce house, used the photo booth, spun the big wheel and bought books from Scholastic, met authors and bought signed copies of books, donated purchased books at the ECBC booth, wrote Care Cards to go in oncology kids’ book boxes, had their faces painted and cartoon caricatures drawn, warmed up with CHOCO the CHOC bear mascot, enjoyed the all-you-can-eat pancake and sausage breakfast, participated in the book character costume contest, and raced their hearts out on the beautiful Jeffrey Open Space Trail. It was so fun to see so many doing this in their bright orange “BOOK IT!” shirts and sporting “Run Read Thrive” medals!. Congratulations to top 5K finishers (male winner Timothy Lam, female winner Kaylah Tasser) and to our 10K winners (male – Sam Juliano, female – Helena Madden), as well as to all age division winners. And congratulations to Costume Contest winners (the Peter Pan family, Elephant & Piggie, and the Harry Potter couple) and to everyone who added to our themed race by sporting literary costumes!
Thank you to Jeffrey Trail Middle School, Irvine Unified School District, and the city of Irvine for providing us with a fantastic location for our event. Thank you to Caren Ware and Itz About Time for their expertise in course management and timing equipment. My deepest thank you to our Title Sponsor, KOI CBD for stepping up in the final weeks before race day to support our cause (click here to learn more), and a huge thank you to all of our sponsors: Paris Family Trust (T-Shirt Sponsor), Behr Paint (Medals Sponsor), Enderle Center (Handprint Wall Sponsor), Rise Up Foundation (Costume Contest Sponsor), 5 Boroughs Book Club (Double Book Box Sponsor), VOIT Real Estate (Double Book Box Sponsor), Sur West Homes (Book Box Sponsor) and AA Jewel Box, Cancer clothing, Erin Denes/Berkshire Hathaway Realtor, and Adriene Madden/Magic Maple Tree for your in-kind sponsorships. Thank you as well to all of our event partners: Children’s Hospital of Orange County, KidsREAD!, MaxLove Project, PaKua Martial Arts, Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation, American Academy of Pediatrics Orange County Chapter, Orange County Children’s Book Festival, Orange County Public Library Foundation, Orange County Department of Education, Nothing Bundt Cakes, and Creative Parties for Kids. We couldn’t have pulled this off without all of our terrific sponsors and partners!
Also thank you to MC Andrea Kooiman for providing such an energetic and positive vibe; Master Clawson for leading a super fun warm-up; Emily Frye for all your help with design and artwork; Zov’s for proving the waters; Smart & Final and Sprouts for providing bananas and oranges; Kiwanis Club of Irvine for the all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast; Francie Rosen and Balloons Sound Great for the 1K Fun Run Arch; and Abigail Tweedt for stepping up to sing the National Anthem. Thank you to Scholastic Books for providing terrific titles to sell for the onsite book drive as well as your significant donation of books. Thank you to children’s authors Sheri Fink, Mara James, Derek Taylor Kent, Adriene Madden, Jennifer Gray Olson, Dan Paley, and Suzi Shaffer for joining us with signed copies of your books for the book drive, and thank you to Susie Alexander / Once Upon a Storybook for inviting authors and being a vital part of our cause and events. Thank you to Barry Ackerman, Event Coordinator, who worked tirelessly on many aspects of the event and without whom BOOK IT! would not have been possible. And thank you to the rest of the BOOK IT 2019 planning team for your hard work in the weeks and months leading up to event day — especially Susie Alexander, Sandy Tweedt, Fenny Kokenge, Mary Kay Viscounty, Deb Kennard, David and Danielle Clawson, and Julie Schulman. It was our first year to have a planning team, and as such they helped to secure sponsors, authors, volunteers, and participants — thus expanding our reach in the community. Also, this event would not have happened without the great volunteers who came out to help on race day. Thank you to the Assistance League of Tustin, ECBC’s Bedside Readers, Girl Scout Troop #3115, Nicole Photoglou, Toby and Roger Kuo, Denes family, and Tyler Yang. This event is a big undertaking for our tiny organization, and it truly does take a community to pull it off. You are all so appreciated.
And finally, thank you to the many individuals and families who came out to help make the event such a success! A special thank you to the awesome 36 participants who signed up for the 10K, which was a new event this year that we hope provides a starting place for growth in future BOOK ITs! Thank you to the many participants (many whom we don’t know) who promoted on social media, recruited more participants (the “shares” directly resulted in registrations) and called teams together. A huge shout out to our largest teams: Hewes Middle School, Equalizers, Sherwin-Williams/IREM OC, MatchPoint Tennis Academy, Foothill High School, and Arroyo Elementary School.
I sincerely hope that our community views ECBC’s cause as their cause too, benefiting the kids of Orange County who end up in the hospital. With two years of our charity run under our belt, we hope to continue to grow our annual event so that it continues to support our growing reading programs at CHOC, and hopefully someday a sustainable library there as well. THANK YOU FOR “BOOKING IT” FOR READING FOR KIDS AT CHOC CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL! See you back next year for BOOK IT! 2020!
** If you couldn’t make it on race day but would still like to contribute to our annual fundraiser — either because you want to support BOOK IT! directly or as a way to honor childhood cancer awareness month, it’s not too late! The online book drive/fundraising campaign will be running for a month after the event, until October 8, 2019.
TO DONATE ONLINE, CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE ALBUM OF RACE DAY PHOTOS, CLICK HERE TO VIEW RACE DAY RESULTS, CLICK HERE TO VIEW ETHAN’S OPENING WORDS, CLICK HERE TO VIEW RUNNERS BOOKING IT, CLICK HERE]
