Wissahickon HS German Students Heading to Germany

Frau Wilson is at it again. Nicole Perrine-Wilson is organizing a last fund-raiser to defray costs for 20 German students from Wissahickon High School (WHS) traveling to Osnabruck, Germany in June.  This is her eighth foreign exchange trip in 16 years of teaching German in Florida, Georgia and at WHS.  

On Saturday, May 14, students selected to take the three-week trip, will be pulling out buckets, sponges and soap to wash cars at Shady Grove Elementary School from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. to raise funds for the trip.  Perrine-Wilson typically saves students $1,000-$1,500 on total trip costs by piecing together airfare, hostel reservations, and other needed tickets.  Students sold Advent and raised selling flower bulbs to raise funds.  “I don’t want a student to miss out because he or she can’t afford the trip,” says Perrine-Wilson.

She says grants based on need are also available for students through the German American Partnership Program (GAPP).  Wilson-Perrine connected through GAPP with Herr Jan David Dreyer, an English teacher who received his Master’s degree from Temple University.   Wissahickon students will experience a different way of going to school in Osnabruck: three days a week they attend from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and two days a week from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. with their host family partners.  In October, the German host partners will have the favor returned.  They will travel here, stay with their Wissahickon partners, and attend high school American-style.

Wissahickon students applied in September to participate in GAPP, and were selected in October.  Perrine-Wilson says, “I wanted to choose students, not necessarily the best students, but some for whom this may be their once-in-a-lifetime trip to Germany.”   Besides staying with host partner families, the students visit other areas and stay in hostels for a few days at a time.

Students help plan the itinerary for each trip, and Perrine-Wilson makes sure each trip includes time in Berlin.  “We stay in Osnabruck, in the north of Germany.  Berlin is easier to get to than Munich, and I want the students to see the capitol and other things Berlin offers,” she explains.  

“We’ll see the Brandenburg Gate and the East Side Gallery.  It is the only intact piece of the Berlin Wall left where it was built.  The GAPP students will also visit Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp outside Berlin.  “It is a difficult place to see, but it is meaningful for the kids to experience it,” says Perrine-Wilson.

She keeps taking her students on GAPP trips “because they develop independence and curiosity that they can use for a life time.  Their German improves, too, but that’s not my main goal,” Perrine-Wilson explains. 

Donations are accepted for the GAPP Car Wash at ,  351 W. Skippack Pike in Ambler.