Woman who ‘refused to be a statistic’ finds new ways to inspire the best of America

Sharonda Jenkins of Ridgeland was written off as a failure at age 12.

She had a baby that year — as a sixth-grader in the elementary school in Allendale.

Roadblocks to success were thicker than the pine forests of that poor pocket of the South Carolina Lowcountry, where jobs are scarce and the state has taken over the failing public schools.

With a baby, Sharonda’s roadblocks became cement barriers, now draped with shame.

Yet someone who has watched her life unfold over the past decade says: “Sharonda exemplifies the qualities upon which America was founded.”

And Nona Valiunas of Spring Island says, “She’s not only an inspiration to women who start out in difficult situations, but to all of us.”

On Dec. 10, Sharonda dressed in a starched white dress and matching white cap, white hose and white shoes to be pinned in a ceremony at the Technical College of the Lowcountry in Beaufort.

She had earned her associate degree in nursing, and, upon passing a national exam, she would become a Registered Nurse.

In a moving ceremony where candles are lit to celebrate Florence Nightingale, Sharonda was surprised to receive the class Excellence Award “for her outstanding performance as an Advanced Placement student in the Associate Degree in Nursing Program.”

Cheering in the audience at MacLean Hall were the baby she had when she was a baby, Laquisea (“Qui”), and her baby, Lyric; her husband, John Jenkins; and their daughter, Sha’mya.

Now 36, Sharonda can say: “I refused to be a statistic.”

TECHNICAL COLLEGE

The old folks who shamed Sharonda as a child were right about her life being difficult.

As soon as Sharonda was old enough, she began years of the long commute from Allendale to Hilton Head Island to help her family support her baby. She worked as a housekeeper at Marriott timeshares, a cashier at Food Lion, a deli clerk at Publix and an in-home aide for elderly residents at The Cypress.

She met a good man working in produce at the Publix. She and John Jenkins were married at the Sgt. Jasper Park in Hardeeville. They bought a house in Ridgeland, and had a baby girl, Sha’mya, to go along with Qui and John’s daughter, Jontae.

But even with a house full, and even when she worked a 12-hour night shift on Hilton Head, with John often working on the road with Southern Eagle Distributors, Sharonda would show up for morning conferences with a volunteer tutor when Sha’mya was in first grade.

“She was extraordinary,” says that tutor, Nona Valiunas. “Of all the parents, she was the only one who did it consistently.”

Sharonda saved some money and took a chance on a better life by entering the Licensed Practical Nurse program at Denmark Technical College.

Each Monday through Thursday, she drove 90 minutes each way to the small town up U.S. 321. She worked Saturday and Sunday, and kept Friday for herself.

“It’s a big sacrifice,” her teacher Leigh Brabham said of the course load that nursing students take. “You have to put everything else in your life on hold to be in this program. It takes a lot of dedication and hard work. These girls, they cry on and off all year — they have so much on them.”

Nona introduced me to Sharonda when she earned that LPN diploma in 2018, and took a job with the Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services.

As we talked at McDonald’s, Sharonda told me about the essay she wrote when the class went through obstetrics and gynecology training.

In it, she begged the nurses-to-be not to shame the young and confused mothers they would encounter.

Her essay concluded: “I say again to all nurses, please be sensitive to our situation because the odds are already against us, but if you ever feel the need to judge, I want to leave you with this quote:

“‘There is not enough good in the best of us to criticize the bad in the rest of us.’”

NO QUIT

Sharonda tasted failure in her latest challenge.

But she ended up calling it a blessing to have to repeat the toughest class because it all made sense the second time around.

Her life had hit a nice rhythm before subjecting herself to that failure.

Nona and a friend at Spring Island were so inspired by Sharonda that they pitched in to send Sha’mya to Pope John Paul II Catholic School in Okatie, where she’s a sophomore cheerleader making all A’s and B’s.

Sharonda also had granddaughter Lyric lighting up her life.

But she saw at work that it was time to make a move.

“I have trained medical office assistants, LPNs, and RNs at BJHCHS, and I have been taught many things by Nurse Practitioners Lori Lee and Jessie Goethie,” she said.

BJHCHS helped her work around her new class schedule.

At TCL, instructor Ashley Turbeville said Sharonda stood out, even in a school of non-traditional students who all have their own story, their own barriers.

“Nursing is not for the faint of heart,” Turbeville said. “It’s not easy. But she hit it out of the park. She came prepared, ready to go.”

And Sharonda has an “it” factor of compassion that made patients want to take her home, Turbeville said.

“She’s going to do great things in nursing. I’m proud of her. I can’t wait to see what she does.”

Sharonda likes a quote often shared on the internet: “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”

She adds:

“I don’t know how my story will end, but I do know one would never read that I quit.”

David Lauderdale may be reached at LauderdaleColumn@gmail.com.