Out of Options : Support: Since 1983, Vital Options has been a comforting place where young cancer patients can discuss the disease. But funding woes have forced the organization to close.

For Rick Antone, a 26-year-old Glendale engineer, it was a place to go for comfort when fear of his newly diagnosed colon cancer threatened to overwhelm his sanity.

Dana Stacy, a 22-year-old Thousand Oaks woman, went there because her healthy friends were afraid to discuss the possibility that her leukemia would kill her.

For Heidi Crow, a 24-year-old hospital worker from Tarzana, it was a place where people laughed when she cracked jokes about her cervical cancer, rather than turn away in uncertainty and embarrassment.

Since 1983, Vital Options has given more than 5,000 young people with cancer a haven to discuss fears of dying, hear about new treatments, and talk over how cancer can affect dating relationships and other problems related to their age group.

On Friday, however, the highly regarded Studio City-based group closed its doors, the victim of reduced corporate contributions, competition from other charitable groups and the failure of its members to respond to urgent fund-raising appeals.

Frequently featured in newspaper articles and on television, Vital Options was unique in catering to the needs of cancer victims between the ages of 17 and 40, following the vision of its president, Selma Schimmel, who founded Vital Options during her own bout with breast cancer.

Its annual “Dance for Life” fund-raisers attracted a host of celebrities, including Paula Abdul, Michael Bolton and Liza Minelli. But Vital Options--which did not charge for its services--was never large enough or rich enough to be well-known in the cancer community.

Schimmel said she decided to shut down after a recent fund-raising appeal to her 6,000 members failed and Vital Options ran out of money.

“People would say, ‘You guys are so busy being charitable, and being kind and taking care of people, you didn’t focus on money management,’ ” said Schimmel, an intense woman of 38.

“As an idealist, I always believed, really up until this week, that if you do good, and if you’re sincere and you’re honest, it will all be OK. I never believed that we wouldn’t get rescued,” she said.

Vital Options, housed in a converted apartment house on Coldwater Canyon Avenue, sponsored several support meetings a week for young cancer patients. The group had seven branches in Los Angeles County, Orange County and San Francisco.

At the Studio City office, young people gathered in a large room lined with battered couches covered in green velour. Some were bald from chemotherapy, others had lost legs to amputation.

They discussed virtually anything they wanted about cancer, from how to broach the subject of a mastectomy to a date to where to get the best information about bone-marrow transplants. They reveled in the liberating camaraderie of being with peers who had a similar problem and outlook.

Schimmel, the daughter of a Studio City rabbi and a preschool teacher, developed breast cancer at 28. At the time, her doctor misdiagnosed her, saying she was too young to have the disease. A gynecologist and radiologist said the same thing.

Schimmel realized that her needs were different from those of older victims. While those in their 60s and 70s worried about selling homes and telling grandchildren they might die, young victims like her worried about the impact of cancer on their ability to stay in college, build a career, remain independent of their parents and hold together relationships.

While battling the disease, Schimmel threw herself into Vital Options. She became its heart and soul, fielding phone calls from frightened cancer sufferers at night and on weekends, escorting them to doctors’ offices and networking with cancer experts to learn about the latest medical advances.

Dr. Alexandra Levine, a professor at USC School of Medicine and head of the hematology department at County-USC Medical Center, said Schimmel called her many times for news of medical advances and often showed up at the hospital with her arm around a frightened new patient.

Levine recalled how Schimmel helped a 16-year-old boy with leukemia, whose dream was to become a marine biologist but who died at 18.

“She organized a whole boat trip for this young man and . . . his mother to the USC marine station in Catalina,” said Levine.

“It just burst him into life. He talked about it for the rest of his life. He’d never been on a boat before, he’d never been to Catalina. He had never been treated as someone special.”

But good works alone were not enough to keep Vital Options alive.

In past years, the organization had an annual budget of about $300,000, which paid for a small staff and professional counselors. But Vital Options suffered a major financial jolt this year when several corporate and foundation donors declined to renew grants totaling $150,000, Schimmel said.

This summer, an urgent fund-raising appeal to Vital Options’ members yielded a disappointing $7,000. Schimmel had hoped to raise $50,000 and keep the group running until its next “Dance for Life” fund-raiser in October or November.

Schimmel said her efforts to raise money were hurt by recessionary pressures on corporate donors and by “checkbook burnout” among individuals pressured to give to a wide array of charities.

Increasing public attention on AIDS, she added, siphoned off money that otherwise might have gone to Vital Options. Celebrities who in the past had held benefits for her group recently have turned their attention to AIDS events instead.

Although most branches shut down Friday, two--one in South-Central and one in East Los Angeles--will remain open with a $10,000 grant from the Weingart Foundation earmarked for minorities, Schimmel said.

She acknowledged that cancer support groups abound. But she worries that young people with the disease will find it harder to locate organizations that offer emotional support and medical information tailored to them.

Several group members echoed that fear, saying they have no idea where they will go now.

“You were allowed to say anything, any way. You could be sad, you could be happy. . . . There was so much laughter in this room. Then again, there was so much tears. But most of the time, by the end of the evening, most of the tears turned to laughter,” said Dana Stacy.

“It’s taken the disease out of our souls,” she said.