Sitting in the Franklin Pierce University bleachers on the last day of baseball camp, Charlie Garcia, 16 and Ivan Clough, 15, are bickering like brothers.

“It’s a little bit of a sibling rivalry at times and a little bit good friends,” Ivan’s mother, Sarah Clough, said.

Charlie Garcia was nine years old the first summer he came to stay with the Clough family in Dublin through the Fresh Air Fund program. He was scared and didn’t want to come. But it was his mother’s idea, so he came.

Eight-year-old Ivan was also apprehensive about meeting the Brooklyn, N.Y., boy, and sharing his room for the next two weeks. And like Charlie, it was his mother’s idea.

Growing up in Dublin, Clough said, she remembers seeing Fresh Air families at the lake.

“The kids always seemed to be having so much fun,” Clough said. “It was such a great program. I always wanted to do it when I grew up.”

Charlie and Ivan said they definitely had preconceived notions about each other before they met.

Not only would Ivan be welcoming a complete stranger, but he had had little interaction with Hispanics. “I kind of thought coming from New York, he would be a punk. But when he got here he was all shy and respectful,” Ivan said.

Charlie, meanwhile, had his own misgivings.

“I thought they were really racist people at first,” Charlie said. “When I came, I walked around and all I see is white people and I see them staring at me. I’m used to that now.”

Clough said it was a new experience for the whole family, including her husband, Jeff, and daughter, Taylor, now 16.

“It’s a little unnerving at first. It’s a leap of faith on everybody’s part. And it takes work on everybody’s part,” Clough said.

When the boys met, though, they soon got over their initial beliefs about each other and became fast friends. They now think of each other as brothers, they said.

And like any good mother, Clough found time during the Friday afternoon interview to nag Charlie about calling home to his mother in Brooklyn.

“After a while, it ends up being like another child for a couple of weeks,” she said.

The family bond is so strong for Charlie that he doesn’t think of himself as a Fresh Air kid anymore, he said. “I come here because I want to come. The first time I came, I was forced. I didn’t want to come. Now if I come, I come by choice. I tell my mom, ‘I’m going this year.’”

Over the past seven years there was only one summer Charlie didn’t visit the Clough home. For Charlie, the Clough family and Dublin has become a summer ritual.

“In New York it’s crazy out there. It’s loud. There’s not really much to do. Not like coming here. I get to do new things.”

The boys go fishing and swimming and play baseball together. And like most teenagers, they boys enjoy hanging out.

Charlie’s summer visits are fun for Ivan as well.

“It’s been great,” said Ivan. “It’s fun cause you can get him to do anything first.”

And when the boys get together, they share their passion for baseball.

“Notice the hats? Red Sox fan,” Clough said nodding to her son. “Yankees fan,” she says nodding towards Charlie. “Need I say more?”

After a week of hanging out together, then a week at Franklin Pierce University baseball camp, Charlie and Ivan’s summer visit is coming to an end. But there is still time to play a little more baseball, go bowling and take a trip to Hampton Beach with a Peterborough family who is also hosting a Fresh Air child.

“It’s good fun, nice and quiet,” Charlie says of Dublin. “It’s peaceful. It’s nice. Even the people here are nicer to you.”

Although the Fresh Air Fund program was designed to benefit inner city children, it also makes an impact on the host families that take the city children in.

“I guess it helps you kind of understand other people,” Ivan said.

Clough said, “It’s a good experience because the kids learn people are people no matter where they come from, what they look like. They still have common interests. They can still find things to do together and they can still learn from each other.”

The Fresh Air Fund is a not-for-profit agency established in 1877 to provide free summer vacations in the country to New York City children from disadvantaged communities. More than 1.7 million children have participated in the program since it was started. Through the program, thousands of children visit volunteer host families in 13 states and Canada through the Friendly Town Program or attend one of five Fresh Air Fund camps each year.