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
ECBC just completed our monthly delivery at CHOC Childrens Hospital’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and the Oncology Clinic, re-stocking the bins of our gifting library carts with 515 new books. As usual, we filled the bins with books of every type (e.g., graphic novels, nonfiction, poetry and much more) and for all patient ages ranging from infant to young adult. We love re-stocking our gifting libraries each month and knowing that oncology patients are selecting high-quality books to keep (and hopefully read!) each time they visit the hospital! #outpatientdeliveryday #outpatientlibraries #bookeveryvisit #readthinkthrive #thriveagainstcancer
Yesterday was ECBC’s monthly outpatient delivery day — we re-stocked the bins of our gifting library carts at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and the Oncology Clinic with 457 new books! As usual, we filled the bins with books of every type (e.g., picture books, graphic novels, nonfiction, poetry and much more) and for all patient ages ranging from infant to young adult. We love providing every patient with the opportunity to select a new high-quality book at every outpatient oncology visit (that they will also hopefully read!).
Thank you to everyone who donated books from our Amazon wish lists this month. Between our outpatient and inpatient programs, we are giving away approximately 500-700 new books monthly, and we are currently gifting more than we are receiving. Which means that we are also needing to purchase books on an ongoing basis. So, every book and monetary donation is a great help!
Please consider donating in one of the following ways to help ECBC sustain our programs and continue to provide access to high-quality books and reading experiences at CHOC Children’s Hospital:
Donate a book from our wishlists for board books, graphic novels, learn-to-read books, or informational nonfiction, all of which we have zero in our inventory and are needing to purchase on a regular basis:
ECBC just completed our monthly delivery at CHOC Childrens Hospital’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and the Oncology Clinic, re-stocking the bins of our gifting library carts with 455 new books. As usual, we filled the bins with books of every type (e.g., graphic novels, nonfiction, poetry and much more) and for all patient ages ranging from infant to young adult. We love re-stocking our gifting libraries each month and knowing that oncology patients are selecting high-quality books to keep (and hopefully read!) each time they visit the hospital!
Thank you to everyone who donated books from our Amazon wishlists this month…We couldn’t keep up with this volume of book gifting without the support of our community! If you haven’t had a chance to donate a book this month, please choose a book from Ethan‘s February Wishlist Fundraiser at this link: https://bit.ly/wishlist_RTTbagbooks. Or, donate a book from our wishlists for board books (https://bit.ly/wishlist_boardbooks), graphic novels (bit.ly/wishlist_graphicnovels), or learn-to-read books ( https://bit.ly/wishlist_beginningreaderbooks)—all of which we have zero in our inventory and are needing to purchase on a regular basis. #outpatientdeliveryday #outpatientlibraries #bookeveryvisit #readthinkthrive #thriveagainstcancer
ECBC just re-stocked our gifting libraries at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and the Oncology Clinic with 572 new books — our largest monthly book donation to our outpatient libraries to date! As of this month, we have a new book cart in the outpatient Oncology Clinic (Hyundai Cancer Institute). Prior, we have had a cart in OPI, but in the oncology clinic we have only had book bins on a couple of shelves behind the check-in counter. With this additional cart, we will be providing an additional 50-70 more books per month (approx increased cost of $500-$700 monthly), and patients will also have easier access to viewing and selecting their book of choice to keep.
Each month, we curate books to meet the diverse ages and reading interests of patients… book bins include board books, Spanish-language books, picture books, learn-to-read books, informational/nonfiction texts, activity and joke books, graphic novels for beginning readers, graphic novels for older readers, easy chapter books, middle grade chapter books, teen/young adult books ,and poetry for kids as well as more sophisticated poetry anthologies for teens and YA. When we aren’t able to fill a bin for a particular book type with our inventory of donated books, we purchase to fill in the gaps. We love re-stocking our gifting libraries each month and knowing that oncology patients are selecting high-quality books to keep (and hopefully read!) each time they visit the hospital — but it’s a hefty commitment for our tiny nonprofit! Please watch out for Ethan’s upcoming wishlist fundraiser and consider donating our current most needed book type to help us keep up!
ECBC just delivered 527 new books to CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and the Oncology Clinic — our largest outpatient delivery to date! Every bin of our gifting libraries in both outpatient areas was empty down to the last book (usually there are a few less popular books that linger in each of the bins from month to month). We love re-stocking our gifting libraries each month and knowing that oncology patients are selecting high-quality books to keep (and hopefully read!) each time they visit the hospital! Thank you to Tarbut V’ Torah Lower School and Baum Orthodontics for your significant contributions to this months’ donation–We couldn’t keep up with this volume without the support of our community!
This week was our monthly outpatient gifting library re-stocking day at both the Outpatient Infusion Center and the Oncology Clinic at CHOC Children’s Hospital. We delivered 425 new books of all types for patients of all ages ranging from infants/toddlers through teens and young adults, including some specific titles by special request from a few patients. We also delivered 20 of our Read Think Thrive Book Bags for kids at CHOC to receive after they are diagnosed with cancer (meaning there have been 20 new cancer diagnoses at CHOC in the past month) — which means that we delivered a total of 627 new books plus crafting supplies and other literacy support materials that are in the book bags. We hope these books inspire some summer reading among CHOC patients!
Thank you to everyone who contributed to our May and JuneWishlist Fundraisers for Beginning Reading books and informational books. Every donation we receive helps to offset the usual amount that we spend to replenish our book bins. Please watch out for our upcoming July Wishlist Fundraiser, to be announced in a few days!
Today was outpatient library re-stocking day at both the Outpatient Infusion Center and the Oncology Clinic at CHOC Children’s Hospital. We delivered 420 new books of all types for patients of all ages ranging from infants/toddlers through teens and young adults. We also delivered 13 of our Read Think Thrive Book Bags for kids at CHOC to receive after they are diagnosed with cancer — which means that we delivered a total of 550 new books plus crafting supplies and other literacy support materials that are in the book bags. Thank you to everyone who contributed to our April Wishlist Fundraiser for Spanish language books. Your donations helped to offset the usual amount that we spend to replenish our Spanish books. Please watch out for our upcoming May Wishlist Fundraiser, to be announced in a few days!
Today was outpatient library re-stocking day at both the Outpatient Infusion Center and the Oncology Clinic at CHOC Children’s Hospital. We delivered 400 new books of all types for patients of all ages ranging from infants/toddlers through teens and young adults. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our March Wishlist Fundraiser for poetry books. Your donations allowed us to offer poetry to patients for the first time. You can still contribute to this fundraiser in the next couple of days using this link: https://bit.ly/wishlist_poetrybooks. Please watch out for our upcoming April Wishlist Fundraiser to be announced in a few days!
Today was our monthly re-stocking day at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and at the Oncology Clinic. Usually our bins have scattered books remaining, but today every bin from both libraries was completely empty — so we donated a total of 515 new books for infant through teenage/young adult aged patients. One of the oncology nurses mentioned that patients are now arriving for their chemo infusion or their oncology visit eager to choose a book, and almost all kids are choosing a book over a toy. As stated in our mission, ECBC strives “to make access to books and reading a core part of the care that kids receive in the hospital” — it’s so exciting that books have become a regular and expected part of patients’ outpatient oncology experience!
Today, May 24, is also the 5 year anniversary of the launching of our inpatient program at CHOC, which includes bedside reading in patient rooms by our education/literacy expert volunteers as well as our mobile gifting book cart program. Currently, our bedside reading and mobile books cart programs run on the 5th floor, which is oncology, neurology, and multi-speciality — so many of the hospital’s sickest kids with the longest stays. With sustained and improved funding we hope to someday be able to expand this program to bring high-quality literature and reading experiences to all inpatient floors!
PLEASE help us sustain and grow our programs by joining us at BOOK IT, our annual charity walk/run in Irvine, CA! You can sign up to walk or run (as well as donate) by clicking HERE! And, please share our BOOK IT registration site with your own family and friends — https://runsignup.com/BOOKIT2023!
