A first ride these girls will never forget

Ilsia and Raquel Penate-Castaneda both remember how nervous they were to go horseback riding for the first time at summer camp. The nervousness quickly turned to excitement, though, and once they got on their horses and gave it a try, it became an instant favorite.

Three years later, Ilsia and Raquel, who are 11 and 12, can still remember exactly what the horses they rode that day looked like, down to the tails: One was a white pony with black spots, and the other one was brownish.

“When me and my sister were on the bus back, we were actually crying because we missed the place,” Ilsia said of that first summer at camp.

Founded in 1938 by the Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles, Camp Max Straus gives children who come from single-parent or low-income homes a chance to spend a week at camp.

Ilsia and Raquel live in an impoverished neighborhood of South Los Angeles with their mom, who is a housecleaner, and three older siblings. Both girls received grants to go back to camp for a third summer in a row.

About 900 campers total, ages 7 to 12, attend Camp Max Straus for one-week sessions from June 22 through Aug. 22. It’s on 112 acres of wilderness in the Verdugo Hills of Glendale.

“It’s a tremendous confidence builder,” said camp director Barry Vigon. “Aside from the fact that lots of these kids have back stories that are not terrific, it becomes a haven.”

Campers participate in up to six activities per day and follow a motto of “challenge by choice,” meaning they aren’t forced to do activities they don’t want to do.

Activities include theater, arts and crafts, swimming and a new ropes course.

Campers also get a chance to tend vegetables in an organic garden and cook things they grow.

“We let them grow zucchini and then show them how to use it by making zucchini bread,” Vigon said.

Besides gardening and horseback riding, the art of having a good summer at camp, according to Ilsia and Raquel, is to keep trying new things.

“Just relax and have the most fun you can have,” Raquel said, who lip-synced Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” during a campfire skit last summer.

The Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Campaign gave $82,000 to the camp last year.

Thanks to the $1.7 million that was 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