A splashy escape away from the desert’s heat

For 6-year-old Mia Porcho, life is best lived in one place and one place only: a swimming pool.

“I’m a little fishy,” Mia said, as her mom, Jeanette Jaime, pulled her out of the pool and toweled her off to come to the phone.

“She’s in the pool five days of the week,” said Jaime, who works for a program serving at-risk young people. “She only gets out to eat, then gets right back in.”

Mia, who lives in Desert Hot Springs with her mom, stepdad, two older brothers and three older sisters, will get a chance to swim in a pool 70 feet long when she heads to camp for the first time this summer.

Her mom found out about Pathfinder Ranch camp through the local Boys & Girls Club in Desert Hot Springs, where Mia swims almost every day.

“It’s her first experience to be in a different environment than the desert,” Jaime said.

Mia will join between 125 and 145 Boys & Girls Clubs campers, ages 7 to 14, for a week at Pathfinder Ranch, on 72 acres of Jeffrey pine forest in the San Jacinto Mountains near Idyllwild.

Since 1964, the camp has offered a wide variety of sports and organized recreational activities, including horseback riding, archery and a ropes course. Campers come from all over Southern California and as far away as Las Vegas.

“About half the kids are returning campers, and the other half are new to the whole thing,” said Nick Zielinski, program director for Pathfinder. The vast majority, he said, wouldn’t be able to afford camp if it weren’t for scholarships and outside funding.

Campers stay in cabins that help promote friendships and interpersonal growth, Zielinski said.

“I think that camp can be a big boost to a child’s self-esteem and a neat way for them to broaden their horizons in a safe atmosphere,” he said.

The camp focus is on team building.

“They decide on what their evening activity might be [as a group], which helps with building communication skills,” Zielinski offered as an example. “The kids are largely responsible for what they want to do.”

At camp, Mia hopes to practice diving, which she learned to do a few weeks ago. She also wants to teach other kids how to swim.

Thanks to the $1.7 million raised last year by the Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Campaign, about 8,000 children will go to camp in Southern California this summer.

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nicole.loomis@latimes.com