Advice- astrobiology/astrochemistry research

I hope someone has some good advice because I feel so defeated. Astrobiology is my dream career field but I live nowhere near any type of astrobiology research at all (closest is about 1hr 30 away). My university (about 3 hours from where I live) does not have any astrobiology and the chemistry research is like medicinal related. So, I did some neuroscience research throughout freshman year and over the summer to get research experience. I got rejected from all the REU's I applied for, and this is summer of my sophomore year so I feel like I missed out on the most important time to start getting experience in my desired career field. I know this is the case for many people but I just feel like I'm running out of time.

So advice- I don't care about getting paid, I just want experience to get my foot in the door. I am even considering reaching out to the institutions that are an hr and half away from where I live to see if they would take volunteer researchers and I would just commute but I'm not even sure if there's a chance they would consider something like that. Is my best choice to try to get involved in some chemistry research close to me this summer even if its completely unrelated to astrobiology?

Some stats: Sophomore, Chemistry major biology minor, 4.0 GPA, first gen