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 we re-stocked ECBC’s outpatient libraries at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center and at the Hyundai Cancer Clinic with 465 new books. As usual, we delivered books of all types, ranging from board books for infants and toddlers to poetry, nonfiction and novels for teens and young adult (plus many more book types for all the ages in between). It is difficult to know for sure how much reading is happening, but we think that the large volume of books that need to be replensihed each month is a pretty great indication that patients are enjoying the books! Board books, Spanish-language books, and graphic novels still seem to be the most popular…and we think it’s so cool that more patients seem to be excited to read poetry!
ECBC has been providing 400-600 new books per month for the past few years, but recently it has become more difficult to keep up. If you’d like to make an ongoing monetary donation that goes towards our monthly re-stocking days , please consider becoming an ECBC GEM (which stands for Give Every Month). You can visit https://bit.ly/donateECBC to become a GEM, and select the monthly amount that you would like to give.
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
Earlier this week we delivered a TON (421, to be exact) of new December holiday-themed books to our gifting libraries at CHOC Children’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and CHOC’s Oncology Clinic! This means that patients who visit the oncology clinic or OPI in the days leading up to Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza can choose to pick out a holiday book (as an alternative to the usual mainstream literature) — with an array of terrific titles for patients ranging from infants/toddlers to teen and young adults. THANK YOU to all who donated and helped Orange County’s hospitalized kids to thrive through the holidays with books and reading!
Yesterday was our monthly Outpatient Gifting Library re-stocking day at CHOC Children’s Hospital’s Outpatient Infusion Center and at the Oncology Clinic. We delivered 305 new books for patients of all ages ranging from infants/toddlers through teens and young adults, including some specific titles for patients with special requests. We also delivered 20 of our Read Think Thrive Bags that are given out to kids when they are newly diagnosed with cancer; too many infants, toddlers, and teens were diagnosed just in the past ten days — we hope these books will provide some literary joy in the coming weeks and months as these warriors begin their battles. In total, August’s outpatient delivery included 513 new books for patients visiting CHOC for chemotherapy or oncology appointments. Thank you to everyone who contributed to our August Wishlist Fundraiser for easy chapter books; every donation we receive helps to offset the usual amount that we spend to replenish our book bins. If you haven’t had a chance to donate a book from our August fundraiser wishlist, please click HERE.
Today was outpatient book delivery day! ECBC re-stocked our gifting cart at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and our mini library at the Oncology Clinic — gifting approximately 400 new books for patients of all ages, infant through teen/young adult. ECBC also delivered to CHOC 10 more Read Think Thrive Bags, which are our book bags filled with ten new books and book crafting supplies — to be gifted to patients who are newly diagnosed with cancer. So in total, we delivered just over 500 new books to the OPI and Oncology Clinic today! While setting up the library cart at OPI today, I witnessed an elementary school aged boy select a nonfiction book about rocks and minerals (with actual minerals included) — and while he waited to be called for his infusion, he chose to read the book with his dad (rather than play on a device)! #readthinkthrive #thriveagainstcancer
If you’d like to contribute to next month’s outpatient delivery day, CLICK HERE to access Ethan’s Targeted Wishlist Fundraiser for February, which is focusing on board books.
Today was outpatient book delivery day! ECBC re-stocked our gifting cart at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and our mini library at the Oncology Clinic — gifting a total of 500 new books for patients of all ages, infant through teen/young adult. ECBC also delivered 15 Read Think Thrive Bags, our book bags filled with ten new books and book crafting supplies — to be gifted to patients who are newly diagnosed with cancer. This typical outpatient delivery amounts to a cash value of approximately $7500 and wouldn’t be possible without the support of our community via our annual fundraiser and ongoing throughout the year.
Next up: We are going to need a HUGE amount of Halloween-themed books! Please keep an eye out for our Halloween book drive, or consider hosting your own Halloween book drive at your school, business, philanthropy group, or book club!
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!
Today we re-stocked our outpatient libraries at CHOC Children’s Hospital with 250 new books. This allows all patients visiting CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and the Oncology Clinic to select a new, age-appropriate book when they visit for a chemo infusion or physician appointment. We deliver 200-500 books each month to our outpatient libraries so we are grateful to our donors who help us to make this possible. To donate a book from our amazon wish list, CLICK HERE. All books will be sent directly to ECBC and bookplated with donor name.
Yesterday we re-stocked our libraries at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center and at the Oncology Clinic — 360 new books for patients of all ages to select every time they visit the hospital. THANK YOU so much to the handful of schools and local businesses that took the initiative to hold their own book drives. We wouldn’t be able to keep up with this volume of new book gifting without your support ($2000-$4000 value in books per month).
