We had so much fun at the Orange County Children’s Book Festival on Sunday! Our booth was off to the side, so we weren’t sure how much traffic we’d have — but we had a ton of visitors (probably helped by the giant Spin Wheel we had out!). Ethan tirelessly shared his story of diagnosis, founding ECBC, what we’re doing now, and his someday dream for CHOC and all Children’s Hospitals at least 100 times — resulting in some monetary and book donations, and lots of awareness raised. And, Ethan got a particular kick out of the handful of people who came to our booth and said, ‘I know who you are, I follow ECBC on Facebook” or “We’ve been read to at CHOC by one of your bedside readers.” We hope to keep increasing our visibility in the community and our impact!
Thank you to Barry Ackerman and Kids READ! (a local nonprofit that donates gently used books to kids in need) for sharing the booth with ECBC and for obtaining the four tickets to Fancy Nancy the Musical that we raffled off. And a big thank you to Girl Scout Troop #3115 for hitting up all the authors at the book festival and collecting so many new books for ECBC (160)! This is the girls’ third year doing this for us and they’re old pros at it now — approaching author after author, describing our cause, and asking for book donations for hospitalized kids. We’re grateful for Troop 3115’s ongoing support!
And of course, thank you to the ECBC supporters who stopped by our booth — we appreciate you!!
Troop 3115 with one of the authors they visited for book donations
We had such a great time at the Orange County Book Festival on Sunday! It was ECBC’s first time being at a public event (beyond our elementary school), and it was amazing to share what we are doing with other book-lovers and our broader Orange County community. We sold some merchandise and received some new book and cash donations, but more importantly we connected with a lot of people and spread awareness about our efforts to bring books to hospitalized kids! Ethan met numerous wonderful local authors who donated their own books, many of whom also expressed interest in being guest author readers at CHOC when we get things going there. Ethan had a blast presenting at the Storyteller’s Stage, where he shared his story and founding of ECBC with a captive audience of young readers and parents and then read aloud one of his favorite picture books. No shyness for this ambassador of reading — his only complaint was that he wanted a bigger stage and a bigger audience! And we were so excited to have a few girls from Girl Scout troop #3115 — who just joined forces with ECBC to help us collect books and other supplies for our new Read+Think+Thrive boxes (reading kits for kids battling cancer who can’t benefit from the hospital library because they are in isolation at CHOC or are at another hospital where they have limited access to books — more on this in another post!). Thank you, girls, for working so hard and collecting over 70 books for the reading kits! And, I think the best part of it all was watching Ethan sit front and center at the booth, proudly telling his story and sharing his cause to everyone who visited. I have no idea how he was able to do this tirelessly for 7 hours in the heat — a true sign of his tremendous commitment to this!
