Brothers find freedom in outdoor adventures

James and Angel Avila are campers in the vein of true Indiana Jones adventurers.

While spending seven days in the mountains near Wrightwood, the two boys went panning for gold in a creek, searched for crystals and went digging for dinosaur fossils. And they brought home an impressive array of camp stories to tell.

“I found one, but I lost it,” says Angel, 10, about the dinosaur tooth he says he uncovered at camp. But after conferring with 12-year-old James, he admits that what he found was more likely a shark tooth.

James and Angel spent a week at Camp Arbolado last month through the La Habra Boys & Girls Club. With wide eyes, James tells of a ghost known as the White Lady that inhabited his cabin. He describes a picture taken by a camp counselor that he says shows a bloodied, ghostly figure whose eyes you can see vividly.

At home in La Habra, it’s difficult for the boys to get the same freedom and personal space afforded to them at camp. James and Angel live with their grandmother in a four-bedroom house with five other siblings who range in age from 5 to 17.

Their grandmother, 69-year-old Hermelinda Avila, also cares for a daughter, grandchild and great-grandchild, making for a crowded household. That doesn’t count the family pets, which include three cats, a rabbit and a dog.

“It’s like a ranch,” Avila jokes in Spanish.

The boys came to live with their grandmother when they were toddlers because their mother was financially unstable and had difficulty holding a job.

James and Angel now have big dreams and are hoping for lucrative careers in the NFL. They are devoted to watching the Minnesota Vikings and St. Louis Rams football games on television.

But Avila says there is no substitute for camp when it comes to helping James and Angel gain life skills and learn about themselves.

“I like for them to go and enjoy it,” she says. “It’s an opportunity for them to get to know other things and other people.”

James and Angel are among the 12,000 children who have gone to camp this summer, thanks to $2.1 million raised in the Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Campaign last year. Donations this season will ensure that just as many deserving children get the camp experience next summer.

The annual fundraising campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which this year will match the first $1.2 million in contributions at 50 cents on the dollar.

Donations are tax-deductible. For more information, call (213) 237-5771. To make donations by credit card, go to latimes.com/summercamp.

To send checks, use the attached coupon. Do not send cash.

Unless requested otherwise, gifts of $50 or more will be acknowledged in The Times.