ECBC just received such a wonderful donation! Loma Vista Elementary School had an entrepreneur fair, where a portion of the proceeds went to charity. LV Student Council and Entrepreneurs were given some ideas of charities to donate to, and they chose ECBC! They used the funds to purchase and donate 117 terrific new books. We are so honored when our local students get to pick a charity and choose ECBC. THANK YOU Loma Vista!
Thank you Arroyo for collecting books for ECBC at your book fair this past week — we are grateful for the 87 awesome new books that you donated. And a special thank you to Claudia Rounaghi for your help organizing the book drive. We so appreciate Arroyo’s annual support since we started school book drives in 2016!
Thank you to El Dorado High School (Placentia, CA) for your awesome donation this month of 162 new books and monetary donation of $360! And a special thank you to EDHS’s Books 4 CHOC Club led by President Leila Do for all of your hard work in leading the book drive as well as the fundraiser at Handel’s. You collected a terrific bunch of high quality books for patients of all ages, including many of our most needed book types such as board books, graphic novels, and beginning reading books. This was Books 4 CHOC’s first year in existence since they founded their club in the fall of 2023, and they have had a productive first year of making literacy support items (i.e., bookmarks, literary-themed holiday cards) as well as hosting book drives and fundraisers. THANK YOU Books 4 CHOC!
If you are a high school student and interested in starting your own high school support club for ECBC and Orange County’s hospitalized kids, please send an email to ali@ECbookclub.com. Founding and running a club can be a great way to support your local community as well as gain impactful leadership experience!
Thank you Grace Lutheran School in Huntington Beach for hosting a FOURTH consecutive book drive for ECBC and collecting 136 terrific books! A special shout out to the awesome middle school students who conducted the book drive —they make their own posters and collection boxes; man a book donation table for a week before and after school; promote the book drive; and then count, sort, and deliver the books. Thank you to all the Grace Lutheran families who donated, and a special thank you to Joi Vutpakdi for her commitment to ECBC and coordinating this wonderful effort year after year.
We so appreciate our small handful of repeat donor (AKA “Thrive Partner Schools”) who host book drives for us annually. It is a TREMENDOUS help to have some bookraising happen that doesn’t require ECBC’s exceptionally limited resources in order to make happen. Grace Lutheran, and our few other Thrive Partner Schools and businesses — you are a true blessing to our tiny nonprofit!
THANK YOU to Hewes Middle School families for the 320 new books that you donated to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club this week! This was Hewes’ third year hosting their own school book drive, and as in the past, they delivered a terrific collection of new, high-quality books for patients ages infant through teen/young adult(including 74 graphic novels and 54 board books — our two most needed and book types)!
A special thank you to Mrs. Ehrhard’s PE class for winning the class competition by donating the most books. They will have a private Gaga Ball party and donuts during their first period! And a HUGE thank you to Hewes’ Leadership teacher Dean Jennings for leading the effort and for the work of the leadership class in organizing and promoting the book drive. We appreciate you so much and can’t wait to share these amazing books with oncology patients at CHOC Children’s Hospital!
ECBC received a couple of donations this month from two high school Ethan & Choco Clubs. Both clubs are run by student leaders, so all club activities are fully organized and implemented by high schoolers. Thank you to the Foothill High School ECBC club for holding a book drive —which involved making posters and donation boxes, promoting on social media, and coordinating collection sites with English teachers. The Foothill club donated over 100 books, with Ms Womack Williams’ class donating the most and winning the club’s promised donut party!
Thank you also to the ECBC club at El Dorado High (called Books for CHOC) for the bookmarks you donated last week. They are beautiful and literary-themed, and we can’t wait to share them with patients next month!
ECBC is so grateful for the few existing ECBC support clubs, as they help to spread awareness about our cause, assist with the high volume of books ECBC needs for donations each month, and result in wonderful student-created materials that are creative and personal. The clubs also provide high school students with impactful leadership opportunities so they are a win-win for all!
If you or a teen you know is interested in starting a club at your own high school at the start of the 2024-2025 school year, please check out the information/ideas sheet below. Contact Ali at ali@ECbookclub.com to learn more.
THANK YOU to Tarbut V’Torah (TVT) Community Day School’s Lower Campus for conducting another AWESOME book drive for ECBC alongside your school’s book fair! TVT donated a total 397 new books in literally every category that we need them, and as usual they are all terrific highly popular titles. TVT has always used friendly competition to boost student participation, and this year they had a different twist: Every class that donates 25 books would receive an ice cream party, and the grade level to donate the most books also would receive a lunch party. What a brilliantly inclusive way to structure the competition! Congratulations to the 4th graders for donating the most books!
A special shout-out to the Leadership class for promoting the book drive by making posters to put around campus. And thank you to Kimberly Lee and Leigh Choueke for all your work in helping to coordinate the book drive. And thank you TVT for providing fun incentives! This is the SEVENTH year that TVT has conducted a book drive for ECBC — collecting anywhere between 200 to 1000+ books for us each year and a total of 2625 books across the years. TVT, you have made a difference in the success of our tiny non-profit! We are so very grateful for this partnership.
ECBC just received 212 awesome new books from Yorba Linda Middle School! A HUGE thank you to all of the Yorba Linda families who donated! And a special thank you to the ASB students for leading the book drive efforts. ASB created custom book donation boxes for each teacher’s classroom; they made posters with book drive information to display around the school; they further advertised the book drive on YLMS “Bobcat TV”; and they counted, organized, and bookplated all of the books. ASB also added some friendly between-classroom competition into the mix to boost book donations — congratulations to Mrs. Mucho’s classroom for coming in first place with 89 donated books and winning a donut party! And thank you also to ASB teacher Ms. Sundrstum for helping ASB to lead such a successful first book drive for ECBC! Schools provide the majority of the books for our gifting library, so we are deeply grateful to have a new partner in Yorba Linda Middle School (who has agreed to do this annually)! Thank you YLMS!
A new ECBC support club was just started by students at at El Dorado High School in Yorba Linda! Club founders Leila Do (President), Mialani Tran (VP), and Madi Huang (publicity) titled their club Books for CHOC, and they received 100 student sign-ups at club rush! Similar to the ECBC support club at Foothill High School, this club aims to support the mission of ECBC by helping to provide books and literacy support materials for ECBC’s ongoing programs at CHOC Children’s Hospital. They plan to conduct one fundraiser or book raiser each semester; make holiday cards, care cards, and bookmarks; and help to decorate book donation boxes. And they will offer community service hours for students who participate in their activities. Congratulations Lelia, Mialani, and Madi on your new club; we can’t wait to see what you do!
ECBC is so grateful for the few existing ECBC support clubs, as they help to spread awareness about our cause, assist with the high volume of books ECBC needs for donations each month, and result in wonderful student-created materials (e.g., cards, bookmarks) that are creative and personal. The clubs also provide high school students with impactful leadership opportunities so they are a win-win for all!
If you or a teen you know is interested in starting a club at your own high school, please check out the information/ideas sheet below. Contact Ali at ali@ECbookclub.com to learn more.
Thank you Laguna Road Elementary School in Fullerton for conducting a book drive for ECBC alongside their Fall book fair last month. Laguna Road donated 129 new, fantastic books for patients of all ages! A very special shout out to oncology warrior and CHOC patient Will. Will was invited to Laguna Road to share his story, and when asked who which charity he wanted the school to support in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, he selected collecting books for ECBC! THANK YOU Will for so awesomely advocating for ECBC and making a difference for patients at CHOC!
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!
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!
Thank you to Peters Canyon Elementary teacher Elise Hong and her 5th grade class for conducting an impromptu book drive for ECBC in the final two weeks of school! Elise and her students decorated a book donation box, made posters, and spread the word with the rest of the school — and they collected 88 new books amongst the usual end-of-school year craziness! These books will be going directly to kids at CHOC Children’s Hospital next week! Thank you to all PCE families who donated, and ECBC is looking forward to a continuing partnership with Peters Canyon!
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!
THANK YOU Foothill High School families for donating books to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club last month. There is always such an abundance of information and philanthropic opportunities coming from our kids’ schools, and we so appreciate your taking the time to support ECBC’s programs at CHOC. A huge shout out to FHS’ Ethan & Choco’s Club for hosting such a successful book drive! You collected 100 new books –approximately $1000 worth — a record for a high school book drive for ECBC! Your posters, social media marketing, on-site and online options for book donations, and your homemade brownie incentive all paid off!
If teens are interested in starting an Ethan & Choco Club at their own high school, refer to/print flyer below or email ali@ECbookclub.com.
THANK YOU Brookhaven Elementary School for hosting a book drive for ECBC at your book fair last week, and for the 134 new books that were donated by your families! And a HUGE thank you to Jennifer Wolsky Garnant for organizing the book drive and to Will for counting the books and ensuring they are all bookplated! We are so grateful for your support; all of these books will be going to CHOC oncology patients next week!
THANK YOU to Hewes Middle School families for the 430 new books that you donated to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club! This was Hewes’ second year hosting their own school book drive, and they beat their last year’s total by almost 200 books! (And, this was our third highest- one-time donation from a school, ever!). This fantastic donation included books of all types for patients ages infant through teen/young adult, and it is equivalent to one month of ECBC’s donations to CHOC, so it is so super helpful!
A special thank you to Mrs. Magnusen’s class for winning the class competition by donating the most books, and thank you to Mrs. Wagstaff’s and Ms. Moffat’s classes for also donating significant numbers. And a HUGE thank you to Hewes Leadership teacher Dean Jennings for leading the effort and for the work of the leadership class in promoting the book drive, making promotional posters, and counting and bookplating the books. We appreciate you!
THANK YOU Hicks Canyon Elementary School for hosting a spring book drive and collecting 77 new books for ECBC — all of which will be going directly to CHOC this Friday as part of our monthly outpatient library re-stocking day. We are so grateful that you chose to support ECBC at BOTH your school book fairs this year, and we are super excited about your commitment to partner with us in the future. And a big thank you to Tina Jussal for your ongoing leadership in putting together book drives for us. We are giving away a significant number of books (~500+ per month), so we depend on schools like Hicks to keep on going. Thank you!
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, and along with our usual bedside reading and book give-aways, this week we delivered Valentine cards made by local high school students that shared “love of reading” messages with CHOC patients. THANK YOU to Foothill High School ECBC club for making these beautiful cards at your last club meeting — the patients loved getting personalized cards written by high schoolers!
HOW COMPLETELY AMAZING IS THIS??! Tarbut V’ Torah (TVT) Lower School just collected and donated 1,024 new books for ECBC! This is impressive for a school of any size, but TVT’s lower school has only 410 students! A ton of great books of every type — this will help us for months! TVT has always been our strongest school partner, donating 200 or more books every year since we started ECBC. But this year they knocked it out of the park! They beat their own school record from 2019 of 310 books, and they far exceeded their goal for this year of 350 books. They also almost doubled the school donation record across all school donors of 531 books!
THANK YOU TVT families for helping ECBC help hospitalized kids to thrive through treatment with books and reading. Congratulations to the 4th graders for collecting the most books and earning the ice cream party (which apparently the whole school now gets due to the generous cash kickback from Scholastic!)! And a very special thank you to the Diaz family for your super significant contribution!!! Also thank you to the 4th/5th grade leadership class for your amazing efforts at rallying the school with your posters and videos — it is so exciting to hear that every kid got on board! And thank you to Galina and Hayley for all your help organizing the book drive. ECBC is so very grateful for our ongoing partnership with TVT!
