David Fitts spent four weeks of his senior year fishing in the Florida Keys. Not your usual end to a senior year. But in 1980, David was at Woodlands High School in Hartsdale, New York, where he was able to be part of the, at that point, relatively new WISE Program. It was a program that his sister, Susan Fitts-Sibilia, said changed his life.

Never much of a student, David loved just about everything – except going to classes. He became part of WISE because he thought it would get him out of those classes. When it came to deciding what he wanted to do, he thought of his first love – fishing. But WISE started in January and he was living in Hartsdale. A bit cold. A bit icy. Not too many prime fishing possibilities.

So he made plans, as all good WISE students must. He ended up flying down with one other student (also named David) to Theater of the Sea in Islamorada, Florida; the two of them camping out by themselves, fishing by themselves, swimming with the dolphins, enduring the tropical rain bursts that flooded into the tent and floated the canned food they had brought along with them and stashed away inside the tent. David had the time of his life.

After that, David was on his way. He never looked back. WISE had given him the confidence to try even the most unusual things and do so with joy and zest. Once a high school graduate, he went into the service, then continued to take on just about anything that came his way, be it unusual or difficult or surprising. He loved and embraced life and lived it to the fullest.

David was the third of four siblings, three brothers in all and one sister, and they remained close even when they lived some distance from each other. Susan, herself a WISE graduate and a member of WISE Services staff, remembers the photo taken of them all at her wedding a few years ago. After collecting them into a group, the photographer asked “Who was the one who caused all the trouble when you were growing up?” Without a moment of hesitation, all three brothers pointed directly at her. A little TOO little hesitation – making her realize that David had set this up.

David was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 and was given three months to live. He lived every moment to its fullest – and stretched out three months into three productive years. Upon his diagnosis, he decided he wanted, once again, to go fishing — with some of the people he loved. He, his two brothers, a cousin and his brother-in-law, Susan’s husband, went together back to the Keys where David had spent his WISE weeks, and they fished to their hearts’ delight. They were spectacularly successful and decided to take their catch to a local restaurant that would cook whatever fisherman brought to them in the manner that those fisherman preferred – broiled, baked, blackened – whatever! The only problem was that Susan’s husband, Nick, hated fish – had NEVER eaten fish and had no interest in doing so now. When the fish appeared, beautifully presented, at their table, Nick demurred. David was having none of that.

“You caught it. You eat it,” he said. Very simply. And Nick did – and, to his astonishment, loved it. One of the things that WISE taught David, not to be afraid of the unknown, was something that he was clearly able to pass on to others. Not that it lasted all that long with Nick, who has yet to take another bite of fish.

David would have celebrated his 54^th birthday on January 11, 2016. He died a little less than two months shy of that. He fought a courageous three years’ battle with cancer and continued to enjoy everything he encountered in life despite that battle. His humor, his energy, his joie de vivre defined him up to the end, as did his love for those in his life, including his daughter. of whom he was immensely proud who will herself be graduating from high school this spring.

WISE may have made a huge difference in David’s life, but it is students like David who make the difference for WISE; students who see the opportunities that WISE offers them and who turn them into lessons that will have a lasting impact on them and on how they conduct themselves for the rest of their lives. WISE celebrates David Fitts, who lived his life as he saw fit and who lived it truly well.