What began as a personal book drive grew into For Love & Buttercup, a nonprofit spreading comfort and joy to hospitalized kids.
Sometimes, when life delivers terrible news, people freeze. Others cry. And then there are people who quietly decide to do something, even if they don’t yet know what that something will be. This is one of those stories.
It begins with a daughter, a devastating cancer diagnosis, and a feeling many people know all too well: complete helplessness. But instead of staying stuck there, she turned that feeling into action, and in the process, donated 25,000 books to sick children and patients, all to help her process the situation with her dad.
The Moment Everything Changed
When Emily Bhatnagar’s father was diagnosed with cancer, the world tilted. Hospital rooms, long waits, medical jargon, and the emotional weight that comes with watching someone you love suffer became part of daily life. Like many family members of patients, she wanted to help, really help, but didn’t know how.
You can’t cure cancer with love alone. You can’t read the right article or say the perfect thing and make it disappear. That helplessness can feel overwhelming.
But during hospital visits, she started noticing something small but powerful: books. Or rather, the lack of them.
Why Books?
Hospitals are strange places. Time moves differently. Days blur together. Anxiety fills the gaps. For kids, especially, hospitals can be frightening, boring, and lonely all at once. Books offer something precious in that environment. They bring a distraction from fear, and often from pain. There’s a comfort and a familiarity in holding a book and escaping into a story, and that is invaluable in times of trouble.
For children who are sick, reading isn’t just entertainment; it’s emotional relief. It’s a way to leave the hospital bed without leaving the room.
Seeing this firsthand planted a seed.
From Helpless to Determined
Instead of letting the feeling of powerlessness swallow her, Emily decided to focus on what was within reach. She couldn’t change her dad’s diagnosis, but maybe she could change someone’s day.
So she started small. A book drive. A few donated titles were sourced from the Nextdoor app and sanitized at home. It was a simple idea: collect books and give them to kids who were stuck in hospitals, dealing with things no child should have to face.
At first, there was no grand plan. No expectation that it would turn into something massive. It was just one person trying to make hospital stays a little less heavy for others, and maybe, in the process, cope with her own fear and grief.
When One Book Drive Turns Into Many
What she didn’t expect was how quickly people would respond. Friends donated books. Then friends of friends. Schools got involved. Community groups asked how they could help. Boxes of books started piling up faster than she could have imagined.
What began as a small act of kindness grew into a full-blown mission.
Over time, the numbers became staggering: 25,000 books donated to hospitals, pediatric centers, and patients in need. Each one represented a moment of comfort: a child smiling, a parent relieved, a patient distracted from pain.
Books as Emotional Medicine
Medical care treats the body. But healing, or simply enduring, often requires more.
Books offer that. They can bring companionship when patients feel isolated, and lend us courage through characters who overcome challenges. A good book can provide laughter in places where it’s desperately needed, and, perhaps most importantly, reassurance that the world is bigger than our immediate situation.
For children, especially, stories can make the unbearable feel survivable. They give kids something to focus on that isn’t needles, scans, or test results.
That’s what makes this book drive so powerful. It recognizes that emotional well-being matters just as much as physical treatment.
From Book Drive to National Nonprofit
What started as a heartfelt, personal response to her dad’s illness soon grew into something bigger. Emily didn’t just stop at collecting thousands of books; she transformed her initiative into a formal nonprofit called For Love & Buttercup.
As her story gained attention, more and more people wanted to help. Donations poured in, volunteers offered their time, and hospitals reached out requesting books. The demand highlighted the need for an organized, sustainable way to get books into the hands of sick children. That’s when Emily decided to register For Love & Buttercup as a nonprofit, ensuring the project could operate on a larger scale, maintain transparency, and continue to grow.
The nonprofit structure allowed her to expand beyond the initial book drive. Now, books are curated, sorted by age and genre, and sent out on a regular basis to hospitals, pediatric centers, and clinics, primarily across the East Coast, though the organization is eager to serve children nationwide. Each shipment is carefully packed with love, often including personalized notes and handmade bookmarks, small touches that remind kids they’re seen and cared for.
Emily’s journey shows how a single act of compassion can evolve into a lasting institution. By formalizing her efforts, she turned a personal coping mechanism into a nationwide movement that has now donated over 25,000 books, providing comfort, distraction, and joy to children facing some of life’s hardest battles.
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Millie Ramm
Millie has been writing since she was a child, and has spent more time with her nose in books than anywhere else. She has been ghostwriting novels and editing for the past few years, and when not working she is curled up with her cats, looking for her next read.
