Runner Helps Send Young Cancer Victims to Camp

Thousands of people are expected to run in Sunday’s Los Angeles Marathon, most to experience the thrill of completing the grueling test of physical and mental endurance.

But Cleveland High School English teacher Ed Rasky, 64, has an additional goal in tackling the 26.5-mile course--raising money so children with cancer can go to summer camp.

In the last four Los Angeles Marathons, the Canoga Park resident raised $12,000 for Camp Good Times by asking friends, colleagues and students to donate money to the camp if he completed the course. This year, he hopes to raise $4,000.

“If you are young and end up with cancer, that’s a rotten break. And here I am, 64, in good health and enjoying my life,” he said. “That’s why I always finish my marathons.”

Camp Good Times was founded in 1982 by Pepper Edmiston of Pacific Palisades after a series of summer camps refused to accept her young son David, who was suffering from leukemia.

From its initial one-week session held at the now-defunct Camp Calamigos on Las Virgenes Road in the Santa Monica Mountains, Camp Good Times has expanded to four weeklong summer sessions serving more than 400 campers, some of whom come from as far away as the Soviet Union, Israel and England. The camp also has weekend retreats during the academic year, and campers receive scholarships so they can attend regardless of family finances.

“Cancer is a very isolating disease. It’s great to have friends that understand you, without having to explain why you are bald, or why you are missing a leg,” Edmiston said.

Camp officials are trying to acquire a permanent site. Since its inception, Camp Good Times has rented various facilities for its sessions.

“We go from site to site, like a nomad camp, and we have to carry around all that medical equipment,” Edmiston said. And Rasky, a self-described “physical health nut,” hopes his efforts will help them reach that goal. Rasky has run two miles a day for 50 years and regularly takes part in sports.

He ran his first marathon when he was 54 years old, and Sunday’s event will be his 11th. Until he got involved with Camp Good Times five years ago, he said, he ran to raise money to fight world hunger.

Rasky feels very fortunate to have such good health, which is why--when he learned of Camp Good Times through an advertisement in the newspaper--he immediately got involved as a fund-raiser.

Having served as a director of summer camps in Canada and Southern California for 17 years, Rasky said, he understands how children flourish in the outdoors, away from home, under the guidance of caring counselors.

A summer spent at camp when he was 12 changed his own life, he said, by helping him overcome his painful shyness.

“At . . . camp, they can have such a good time,” he said. “So many positive things come out of it.”