Mount Pleasant Magazine Nov/Dec 2019

40 www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.BestOfMP.com | www.ReadMPM.com feature meager upbringing. “I knew if I wanted to go to college I was going to have to find a way to pay for it myself,” he explained. So, as a teenager he sold pizzas and worked in an aquarium store. He saved enough money to enter a pilot program at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. “I always struggled in school, to be honest,” he admitted. He got a job out of college in Summerville for a ministry organization doing missionary work for medical teams in developing countries. He decided during that time to pursue his master’s degree in business at Charleston Southern University. And that is when he met Holland. “I always had an interest in computers, so helping him with a database was great experience for me,” he said. “I did so many odd jobs at that time to make ends meet.” In 2000, he and Holland opened Benefitfocus, and in 2013, the company went public. Jenkins retired in the spring of 2018, which he said “freed up my schedule to be able to do more for the children’s hospital opening.” What does that mean exactly? He had already donated $25 million in 2015. For Jenkins, that meant bringing lunch to the construction crew every so often, managing the fish tank display in the hallway near the cafeteria (since he had worked in an aquarium store as a teenager and had an interest in fish from growing up in Daytona Beach), and just being there in a supportive role for whatever they may need. “I don’t make decisions here. I don’t work for MUSC and I am not on any board or anything,” he said modestly. “I am just happy to be able to contribute in some way to making this all happen.” There is one room in the hospital that means the most to him. It is a room that he said has the best view on the 10th floor. “My brother-in-law died of cancer earlier this year after only being diagnosed last year,” he explained. “We are going to dedicate this room to him with a plaque. It will be the Dan Cardin Room in memory of him.” As for Olivia, his daughter who suffered with torticollis as a baby, well, she’ll be working at the Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital as a nurse in med-surge. “It’s full circle for her and our family in many ways,” he said proudly. With a few of his personal touches sprinkled throughout the children’s hospital, you may not put two and two together that Jenkins had something to do with that or this over there, but that doesn’t really matter to him anyway. “Being a part of this hospital is beyond any dream I ever had for myself. It brings so much joy to my life. I just want to help in any way I can.”