I Am... Giving Back | Local News | Fox 61 WTIC-TV Connecticut

From the Hartford Courant

I Am... Giving Back

"I Am ...," appearing every other Monday, explores the life experiences of teenagers and young adults in their own words.

By ROSS TAYLOR, The Hartford Courant

February 10, 2008

Janelle Thomas, 17, of Bloomfield, is a senior at Bloomfield High School and volunteers as often as twice a week at the New Beginnings Family Birthcare center at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford. She has done a variety of jobs, including office work, patient care preparation and patient support. She is one of 150 junior volunteers - those under 18 - at St. Francis. Thomas said she hoped that working at the hospital would help prepare her for the future. The senior, however, struggles to find camaraderie in her volunteer experience among fellow students and friends. Thomas relates her experience to lessons learned in a movie she saw at Bloomfield High:

We watched a movie in school, it was called "Pay it Forward" and [the lessons were] if you help people, then in the long run something will happen to you. That's why I give back to the community, because people need it and that's what I like to do - give to people who need help and help make their life better.

I've been volunteering for a year and a half, and I chose to volunteer at the hospital because when I grow up I'd like to be a surgeon. I thought that the hospital experience would bring my dream more to life. I get to do more of the things that I see on TV. Instead of watching it, I get to do it.

If you want to be something, you have to find a way. You have to do something that's related and get experience so that's what I'm trying to do. First, I check in with the CNAs (certified nurse assistant) then I make bags for the patients that are going to be admitted to the floor - mostly the personal stuff they use while they're on the floor. Also I make baby bags, which are blankets and some of the necessities the baby needs. The hospital isn't just a place you come when you're sick. People work here to make the hospital better. That's what I want to do too.

I watch and I learn how to do certain things that the CNAs show me, like when they're washing the babies, when they're bringing the babies to the mom, how the mom interacts with the child and how the father is there. I make the beds, I fix the pillows, I put all the things they need inside the room after I make their bags. You get an idea of how the hospital is supposed to be run. It's not about you, it's about the patient care.

Sometimes [other students] say, "You want to go to the football game?" and I say I have to volunteer today. Sometimes my friends don't understand. They get mad at me and say, "Why would you volunteer over going to the football game?" A lot of people don't see it my way, but in the long road it will pay off for myself.

If you have to be forced to do community service then I think it's a problem, you should want to give back to your community, because when you are elderly you would want people to give back to you.