CALAIS – Josh Look found his star.

Look’s star was in the Castle of Miracles, along with thousands of stars from kids who’ve been guests at Give Kids the World in Florida.”It’s a huge castle that every person who’s ever been there has their name up there,” Marie Emerson, Washington County Community College culinary arts instructor, said on Friday.

“There are 60,000 of them,” Emerson added. At Give Kids the World, dreams do come true for some pretty sick kids. Look was one of those youngsters.

“In April of 1995, on my 10th birthday, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” the 18-year-old Columbia Falls student said. “I went through chemo [chemotherapy] for six months, and that August, I was a Wish Kid and I went to Give Kids the World for a week.”

It’s a magical place where the ice cream is endless and the kindness everlasting, according to the Give Kids the World organization.

Look returned to the village last week as a member of the WCCC culinary arts program. Some day he hopes to own a bar and grill, but for a week in Kissimmee, Fla., he flipped pancakes and made pizza. The students work hard, Emerson said, while they are there preparing meals or serving the youngsters.

The student reflected on how it felt to return as a volunteer, rather than a guest.

“Looking after the kids made me feel how I appreciate my life,” he said quietly.

It was while he was there this time that he was selected to return a week later to represent Maine at the facility’s 20th-anniversary celebration. He explained how he was selected.

“The head of entertainment came right in. I was in the dining room, he sat me down and said, ‘We want you to come back,'” he said. “I was pretty excited.”

There will be parades and parties, Look said. He flew down Sunday with his mother. They plan to return on Wednesday.

Emerson said there is a nondenominational chapel on site, and inside is a book where families write about their experience. She said each year her students read from one of those family inscriptions.

Emerson, who has taken students to Give Kids the World for the past few years, called the passages “touching.”

“Give Kids the World has welcomed families from all 50 states and 50 countries,” the company’s Web site states.

Kids and their families get to spend a week at the village. All children 3-18 who are battling a life-threatening illness, as deemed by a medical doctor, are eligible regardless of income.

Henri Landwirth, who made his money in the hotel business, started the village in 1986.

The village has 96 two-bedroom, two-bathroom villas that serve as a special retreat for families during their stay. There also is a kids-sized train station, a park of dreams, a gingerbread house and safari theater among other places.

Every night there is a different theme, including a beach party, and the kids even get to celebrate Christmas for one night.

Characters from nearby Disney World show up to talk with the kids, and a rabbit character who lives at the village, Mayor Clayton, tucks them in at night.

And for one week, dreams become a reality and children who know only medical treatments and hospitals escape to a magic village.