Crystal Sanchez is a senior at Armijo High School and a volunteer at North Bay Hospital.

Sanchez started volunteering at North Bay on July 29, and it is her first experience with volunteering. She helps at the front desk giving out visitor badges to the people visiting patients.

She has stayed motivated continue volunteering because of her family’s encouragement. “They want me to stay there,” she said. “Some days I don’t feel like going, but they’ll encourage me to go because volunteering at North Bay is something that will help me later on, like becoming a nurse or working in the medical field.”

In the future, Sanchez does plan to become a nurse. As a volunteer at North Bay, she became really interested in that career. “I feel like it was something that helped me understand a lot about the medical field and consider it as my career and something I want to be a part of in my future.”

Sanchez has put a lot of thought into her future and getting her community hours complete, but through volunteering she has been able to combine the two goals. She gets hands-on experience and observes the duties of a nurse. She continues to learn and adjust to the environment as well. That way, when it’s her turn as a nurse, she will be better prepared for the challenges in the field.

As for volunteering, Sanchez encourages others to do so at North Bay as well. “Try something new,” she said. “This was something very different for me and I never really liked to put myself out there like that, but I did it to get experience and to see how it was.”