Camp Good Times Benefit Provides Good Time for All

Sally Struthers never misses a charity event benefiting kids. “I’m still a bleeding-heart liberal,” Struthers insisted on Saturday night at the Black and White Ball, a benefit for Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times. “Also. . . .” Struthers took off her very high heels. “I’m very short.”

Indeed, Struthers was not a whole lot taller than some of the kids from the camp, who were having a good time in the Grand Ballroom of the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. “I feel like a child myself,” Struthers added.

Nine-year-old Jason Higgins was standing nearby, going over his speech. “The treatments can be pretty awful,” he said later at the podium. Jason, a cancer patient like many of the other kids at the camp, has had a kidney removed, and has undergone extensive chemotherapy. “But no one cares at the camp whether you’re bald or have a catheter.”

Camp Good Times was started single-handedly by Pepper Salter Edmiston, who was looking for a camp for her 8-year-old son David, who had leukemia. A self-described “serious A-type,” Edmiston couldn’t find a camp, so she inaugurated her own. “I started in April of 1982 and by August I got all the medical people together, found a camp in Malibu to rent and started Camp Good Times. And it’s all free for the kids.”

McDonald’s Children Charities became a major sponsor in 1984. Michael Jackson, Dustin Hoffman, Lionel Richie and Ronald Reagan have all visited the camp, and assisted in fund raising. “This year’s benefit should raise about $250,000,” Edmiston said as she looked around the jampacked ballroom. “That’s a lot of campers.” Since 1982 more than 2,500 children have attended.

“Friends have gotten me involved,” said Mel Harris of “thirtysomething.” Edmiston got Struthers to commit to teaching a drama class at the camp before the salmon dinner was over. “We’d do anything for Pepper and Camp Good Times,” said Carole Bayer Sager, the evening’s entertainer with Burt Bacharach.

Some other friends of Edmiston’s at the ball were Sandy Duncan, Judith Light, Robert Desiderio, Jayne Meadows, LA Style magazine’s Joie Davidow, Versace’s Carolyn Mahboubi, the Hollywood Reporter’s Tichi Wilkerson and LA Weekly’s Pete Cameron.

“Wow, am I glad that’s over,” 9-year-old Jason announced as he left the stage after his speech. “Wow.”