Siblings enjoy the outdoor life

To Peymaneh Hatamsefat, the idea of summer camp would have been a concept lost in translation four years ago.

After fleeing from Iran with her children, Hatamsefat was granted political asylum in the U.S. and found a new life in Los Angeles.

“Three years ago, none of us could speak English,” Hatamsefat said. “It was very scary for us -- it’s just so different from here and back home.”

Though the transition was not easy for her daughter and son, Parnian and Parshan Soheili, who are 9 and 11, the close-knit family soon found a sense of community at the local Westchester YMCA and life began to resume itself.

They befriended other members who introduced them to the idea of camp, and a few months later, Parshan and Parnian were on their first bus ride to summer camp.

For a second summer, the two will join about 150 children from the Westchester Family YMCA, ages 7 to 12, at Camp Round Meadow, in Barton Flats near Big Bear Lake. Nearly 2,000 YMCA campers around Los Angeles go for a one-week session each summer.

“In my country, it doesn’t matter how much money you have, you cannot get these facilities,” Hatamsefat said of camp.

Besides the expansive setting in nature, the camper-counselor relationship is the cornerstone of the YMCA camp experience, said Issa Ludlow, camp and family program director.

“Usually, it’s the first time away from their parents,” said Ludlow, who knew Parshan and Parnian from after-school activities at the YMCA. “It’s an opportunity to make their own way and be put in an environment with other kids and adults.”

The camp doesn’t allow campers to bring electronics -- be it a Game Boy or a cellphone -- but with horseback riding, dodge ball and a bevy of water sports like banana boating and canoeing, the fun doesn’t run dry.

“It wasn’t just like activities, then eat dinner, then go to bed,” Parnian said. She found solace in one activity in particular: the nightly campfire.

“At night, when you look up, there’s all these stars and people were singing and dancing and laughing.”

After camp was over, the experience lingered for both children.

“I was kind of quiet for a while thinking about all the activities I did,” Parshan said, who hopes to one day become a politician.

“It was a chance to get away from the pollution and get clean air.”

For Parnian, who hopes to be a veterinarian one day, camp taught her real compassion for others.

“I think it made me more social and it made me learn you don’t have to have the same blood as someone else for them to make you feel at home.”

The Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Campaign gave the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles $130,000 last year.

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.

The annual campaign is part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund, a fund of the McCormick Foundation, which matches all donations at 50 cents on the dollar. Unless requested otherwise, the Los Angeles Times Family Fund makes every effort to acknowledge donations of $100 or more received by Sept. 1 in the newspaper.

All donations will be acknowledged by mail in three to four weeks.

Donations are tax deductible as permitted by law. Addresses will not be released or published. For more information, call (800) LA TIMES, Ext. 75771, or e-mail familyfund@latimes.com.

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nicole.loomis@latimes.com