By Howard Buck, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.
Jun. 10–Battle Ground parents couldn’t do better for a hired baby sitter than Daria Giuchici.
The honors student shuttled between Battle Ground High School and the Clark County Skills Center’s applied medical sciences program. She’s earned certificated health occupations and caregiver credentials, plus first-aid and CPR papers.
She’s logged 400 hours of volunteer work at Southwest Washington Medical Center, escorting patients, stripping and setting up rooms, and running errands of all types.
For paid, part-time work this year, she cared for residents at the Mallard Landing assisted-living center. She still baby-sits on the side.
When finally at home, she watches over five younger siblings — the youngest of whom, Amy, 10, has Down syndrome.
“At times it is hard, but it’s worth it,” Daria says. She savors every one of Amy’s hugs. “I don’t even know what our lives would be without her, she brings so much joy.”
There are five older siblings, too. That puts Daria smack in the middle of 11 children to a couple who fled communist Romania and arrived in Vancouver when she was 2.
The load grew when cancer claimed her father two years ago. But close ties to the large Philadelphia Romanian Pentecostal Church in east Portland, where she worships each week, help anchor the family.
Now, Daria is Seattle-bound, the recipient of a full, four-year nursing scholarship to the University of Washington. She weighed physician training but would much rather have close, daily personal contact with patients.
“I’ve always wanted to be a nurse,” she says.
– Howard Buck
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