When she's not literally in the closet intensely studying to achieve her dream of becoming a nurse, Jennifer, "Jeni" Bergstad gives and gives and gives – to her family, to her community and to her fellow nursing students at the Yavapai College Verde Valley campus.

"If it's a priority, you can do whatever you want. It's a priority for me to help," said the soon-to-be second-year YC nursing student. Jeni created a study space in a closet in her Clarkdale home. There she spends hours daily Zooming into classes and study sessions, participating in YC Students of Leadership virtual activities and helping steer the community service work of the YC Verde Valley Student Nurses Association.

She emerges from the closet to assume the roles of mom and doer, carpooling her own and other children to school, collecting donated Christmas toys and food for struggling Verde Valley families, tackling duties as vice president of her homeowners association and various other volunteer pursuits.

The food and toy collection stem from Jeni's involvement in the student nursing association, an organization she joined to help ensure her success in nursing school. "I went into it knowing it was a great resource to help me be successful, but I learned so much more than that -- about helping other people, impacting our community and making us great nurses."

To help address the economic hardships wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the YC Verde Valley SNA expanded its community service endeavors this year to include a Thanksgiving food drive and a Christmas toy drive. With the help of community partners like Dollar General and A-1 Moving, both projects proved enormously successful. The toy drive yielded garages full of toys. "In our community, all you have to do is ask and people are always willing to help each other," Jeni said.

The SNA plans to continue helping the community even after the pandemic subsides. "What can we do to impact people while we're in school and what can we do to make the Verde Valley great?" Jeni posed about the SNA's post-COVID future. She'll help frame a response as the association's president next year.

Along with her contributions to the SNA and YC Students of Leadership, Jeni serves as YC Nursing Program class representative – a volunteer position that has her lifting up classmates via text or email messages and advocating for them when they need extra support from faculty and staff.

Until recently, Jeni also worked full time as a labor and delivery scrub tech at Verde Valley Medical Center. "I loved that job. It made me go, oh my gosh, nursing, it's amazing. You just impact everybody's life."

Along with her desire to impact lives, Jeni said she chose nursing to help fill gaps in healthcare services in her community – gaps she discovered searching for answers and care for her son's mental health condition.

"Mental health is a major issue in our country in our state and in our town. But the resources are not there and the funding is not there. Having experienced a revolving door of doctors, I asked myself what can I do to change that. I can become a psychiatric nurse practitioner… I can go into practice and help families like mine."

That's Jeni's goal -- providing mental-health care and support for affected families in her own backyard. It's a goal that took shape over time. years in fact, punctuated by raising her children, Michael, 14, and Madilyn, 11, with her husband, Brandon; with obtaining a GED and a Certified Nursing Assistant credential; and then chipping away at the college classes she needed to apply for and be accepted into YC's nursing program.

"There was a time when I honestly believed I'm not smart enough to go to nursing school. But you really can do anything that you put your mind to. We all can."

Jeni is proud of her accomplishments so far amid the pandemic and is ready to tackle her second year of nursing school and the additional education she'll need to become a nurse practitioner. "I'm still not certain I'm smart enough to be a nurse practitioner. It may take me more work and more time, but I'll still get to the same place."

Jeni's also happy to be pursuing a nursing degree at YC. "I love this college. I love it. The amazing support within the faculty and from the director is phenomenal. They set us up for success. COVID is a really challenging situation for all nursing schools, but our nursing school, our faculty is working so hard for us to continue to move forward and be successful. COVID has made me want to hurry up and do it. Our community really needs nurses."

Hard work and strong family and community support also are key to college success, but most importantly, Jeni said, "Believe in yourself. You know what's expected of you. If you want to be successful, figure out a way to make it work."

The YC Student Nursing Association of the Verde Valley invites families to submit requests for holiday toys donated by community members. Here's where to submit requests: A1suprememoving@MSN.com