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
Click image to view Ethan’ s February Thank You & Book Request Video
Here’s Ethan’s monthly thank you and book request video for the month of February. This year, each month Ethan is asking for the books that he requested in our initial year of bookraising for ECBC, back in 2016 — when he made a “Book Look video” of a favorite book on each day of the year, for 366 straight days. Please check out this video to learn more. The wish list (CLICK HERE) contains all of the titles that he requested each day of the month in 2016 and now again in 2020, with the number of copies of the title that ECBC still needs. As with all of our wish lists, all books purchased from this list will be sent directly to ECBC. If you’d like to check out the video book review plug that Ethan made four years ago for any of the books on the list, the links to each of the videos are provided below.
Thank you so much for supporting ECBC’s growing programs at CHOC Children’s Hospital!
There’s only one day left of 2019! If you’d like to make a year-end gift to support books and reading for kids at CHOC Children’s Hospital, click HERE to access the PayPal link. Now that ECBC is an IRS approved nonprofit 501(c)(3), all donations are tax deductible (EIN 83-2934289). Your donation in any amount makes a significant difference in contributing to kids’ thrivership through treatment, especially cancer and other life-threatening/life-altering illness. If you have already made a year-end book or monetary donation, THANK YOU!!
ECBC had a fun and productive day on Thursday, getting books and reading to CHOC patients in a variety of ways. We teamed up with MaxLove Project for a holiday-themed BeSuper Party in the hospital lobby, where we gave away December holiday-themed books to patients and siblings of all ages. We also delivered books to the Outpatient Infusion Center, re-stocking their shelves with approximately 150 new holiday books. And, per our ongoing bi-weekly inpatient program, ECBC’s expert Bedside Readers read aloud to the Oncology and Neurology patients on the 5th floor while also giving away books to patients in isolation using our mobile book cart. To top it off, we delivered a Read+Think+Thrive Bag to a 17-year old cancer patient. It was so fun to reach so many patients at CHOC, especially with terrific high-quality, holiday-themed literature! This is the first year we’ve been able to provide CHOC kids with holiday books and they have been THRILLED — THANK YOU TO everyone who has been dropping off and sending books to us — — we’ve been overwhelmed by the donations, which are making this season at the hospital that much more
PLEASE HELP! ECBC just agreed to participate in a new holiday event that is occurring in just a few days, and we’re looking for some support to pull it off!
On Friday December 6th, Miracle Manor (a home subsidized by Miracles for Kids for 12 low-income CHOC families with critically ill children) will be hosting a holiday event for their families, and ECBC was invited to provide storytime and books for all of the kids! Our goal is to provide two books for each of the approximately thirty children who live at Miracle Manor, with books picked out specially to match the ages, gender, and interests of each child. So, we are in need of some quick donations! You can help in one of these two ways: (1) donate via PayPal by clicking on HERE, or (2) donate a book off an Amazon wish list that ECBC created specifically for Miracle Manor kids (click HERE). Books bought off this list will go directly to ECBC with donor name written on the bookplate. We would SO appreciate your help so that we so we can provide specific titles that these children will be excited to read!
Also, ECBC needs holiday-themed books for our bedside reading program, to gift to patients in isolation, and for our annual holiday book give away event in the CHOC Children’s Hospital lobby. Please click HERE to buy books from this wish list!
THANK YOU for helping CHOC patients and families THRIVE through treatment during the holiday season!
ECBC Co-Founders Ethan and his mom Ali spent the day at the Orange County Children’s Book Festival working hard to raise awareness and collect a few book donations too. It’s hard to believe this is ECBC’s 4th year at the OC Children’s Book Festival!
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]
Today ECBC trained a terrific new bedside reader volunteer (Karen Malone Ottoson — so happy to have you on board!); gave away a bunch of new books to toddlers through teens at our Super Book Give-Away alongside MaxLove’s Be Super Party in the CHOC lobby; delivered 125 new books to the Outpatient Infusion Center; conducted bedside reading in oncology and neurology patients’ rooms; and offered patients in isolation books to keep from our mobile Gifting Library Cart. A busy, great day at CHOC for ECBC!
PLEASE help ECBC keep this all this going for Orange County’s hospitalized kids and join us at our 2nd annual charity run — BOOK IT! Racing for Reading for Hospitalized Kids! Race is in 23 days — sign up now!!!
Please watch Ethan’s video and sign up for BOOK IT! 2019, ECBC’s 2nd Annual Charity Run — Sunday, September 8 at Jeffrey Trails Middle School and Jeffrey Open Space Trail in Irvine…
ECBC’s 2nd annual charity run is just 6 weeks away, and we are urgently needing a title sponsor at the $5000 level. Title sponsor receives event naming on the start/finish banner, large logo on t-shirt, website presence, and up to 10 runner registrations. PLEASE share this with family and friends who could be potential sponsors! We also are looking for corporate sponsors ($3500), book box sponsors ($500+) and in-kind sponsors that cover items such as bounce house, photo booth, etc ($250). CLICK HERE for the sponsor form, and CLICK HERE to see which sponsor levels are taken and still needed.
A HUGE thank you to those in our community who have committed to sponsor BOOK IT #2!! Paris Family Trust (T-shirt Sponsor), Behr Paint Company (Medal Sponsor), Enderle Center (Handprint Wall Sponsor), Rise Up Foundation (Costume Contest Sponsor), Voit Real Estate (two Book Box sponsorships), Cancer Clothing (In-Kind), and Erin Denes/Berkshire Hathaway (In-Kind). The success of our event and continuation of our reading programs for hospitalized kids are dependent on your support , so we are hugely grateful.
If you haven’t signed up yet, please CLICK HERE to register. We are currently behind last year’s numbers, yet we need to double them in order to sustain our book and reading programs at CHOC Children’s Hospital! Also, when you register (or if you can’t join us), please consider donating to our virtual book drive (using the same registration link) — which last year was able to provide enough book boxes and books to maintain 6-8 months of our programs. 1K/5k/10K, custom medals and t-shirts for all participants, division winner awards, book character costume contest with prizes, and option to purchase a pancake breakfast. Donate a book or book box online when you register, or bring a new book to the run on race day — and receive a free pancake breakfast!
ECBC’s 2nd annual charity run and book drive is just around the corner, and we need your support in order to sustain/grow our book and reading programs at CHOC Children’s Hospital!
BOOK IT! Racing for Reading of Hospitalized Kids will be on Sunday, September 8th at Jeffrey Trails Middle School and Jeffrey Open Space Trail! You can help in one or more of these four ways:
Register to run in the 5K, 10K or 1K Fun Run. All runners receive a custom BOOK IT! T-shirt, medal, and electronic timing results. Sign up easily at www.runsignup.com/runreadthrive
Contribute to our online book drive by donating $20 for a new hardcover book for ECBC’s lending library or $100 for a book box for children at CHOC who are newly diagnosed with cancer. Online and onsite book donors will receive a ticket for a free pancake breakfast at the race. Click HEREto donate online.
Be a BOOK IT! Sponsor! We need sponsorships at all levels, including T-Shirt Sponsor, Medal Sponsor, and Title Sponsor. Click HERE to check out the enclosed Sponsor Form for the variety of sponsor levels,; all sponsors will receive name or logo recognition on the BOOK IT! t-shirt. Email Ali@ECbookclub.com for more information.
SHARE this post or the BOOK IT! registration link — www.runsignup.com/runreadthrive. Last year we had almost 500 participants, and we are aiming to double the turnout this year to meet the needs of our growing programs. Please help us expand our community of supporters!
BOOK IT! Is currently our primary means of fundraising and bookraising! We need all the support we can get so that we can continue to help hospitalized kids thrive through treatment with the help of books and reading. THANK YOU!
