Ten local students will soon go on a trip of a lifetime.
They are headed to the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro all thanks to a retired local teacher.
Bill Van Wyck was a teacher for 20 years, but in retirement the 84-year-old continues to touch the lives of student athletes in a way some never dreamed was possible.
He contacted 16 local high schools this year asking that teachers or coaches nominate student athletes who they feel would deserve the Olympic experience.
Fifty-two students were nominated and dozens applied. This week, 10 were selected.
Some of the selected students said they were “blown away" “were running up and down the hall” with excitement.
The students will attend the Olympic Games for only about $400.
Sandwich Secondary students make up four of the ten selected to go to on the trip.
Van Wyck says his first trip to the Olympics was in 1972 at the Munich Games.
“The whole place was an Olympic site, big flags all over and I was thrilled," says Vanwick.
He loved it so much, he wanted to share the experience.
"So Montreal was only down the road, so we decided to take a whole bunch of kids and a whole bunch of adults," he says.
After that, he didn't stop. At first, Van Wyck took student athletes from Kennedy, where he was a teacher When he retired, he opened the invitation to other schools.
Rio will be Van Wyck's eighth trip to the Olympics with students.
“They want to go to something they like, something they are thrilled by. And I'm thinking I can give them a thrill of a lifetime. I can do that.”
Sarah Moore, now a physical education teacher was one of those students who attended the Barcelona games in 1992.
“(It was a) trip of a lifetime,” says Moore. “I still remember everything we did, everything we saw. I have a journal from every day. Bill encouraged us to write about what we saw and did."
Van Wyck says he pays for the trips by "borrowing money and selling my stocks at a loss."
He says the trips are worth every penny.
He plans on heading to at least two more Olympics after Rio.
