Shelina Lin and Maddie Letford are both New York City girls. Shelina, 12, lives on Staten Island, while Madison, 13, hails from Brooklyn.

Neighborhoods are crowded in New York, and there’s a lot of pavement covering the ground, so when the girls heard about the Fresh Air Fund’s Friendly Towns program, which pays for city children to spend a summer week or two in a rural or suburban area, each jumped at the chance.

This year, the girls, who didn’t know each other before the trip, ended up in Mathews County at the Hallieford home of Amy Ashberry, a teacher at Lee-Jackson Elementary School.

Both girls are quiet and reserved, but they shared some information about themselves for a newspaper interview.

Maddie lives with her mom, dad, and two older sisters, and her school is the Hebrew Language Academy. She said her favorite food is pizza, and if she could do anything at all that she wanted to do, she would explore the world.

Shelina lives with her mom, dad, an...