Raise Your Glasses: Local Optometrist Wins Beacon of Hope

If you're reading these words through glasses or contact lenses, thank an optometrist.

If you're reading them without vision correction, you may have good genes to thank.

But if you're one of the thousands of people who have been helped all over the world – often free of charge – by the 2011 Beacon of Hope award winner, thank Dr. Joel Jenkins.

Jenkins was awarded earlier this month by the Georgia Lions Lighthouse Foundation, an organization that helps low income Georgians get the vision correction they need. The award goes to one optometrist who goes above and beyond to be a community leader and “who just is very interested about access to health care for all the people in his community and abroad,” said Christina Lennon, executive director of the organization.

Lennon presented the award to Jenkins June 4 at the Georgia Optometric Association's annual banquet in Hilton Head, S.C. She said community involvement, partnerships with other groups and follow-up care were among the criteria five judges – eye doctors from around the state – looked at in naming a recipient.

Sarah Epting, partnership director for the foundation, said Jenkins was chosen from more than a dozen candidates for the annual award.

“This year, Joel just rose above and beyond the rest in terms of his work abroad and also locally with our clinic,” she said.

Epting said one quality that struck them was Jenkins' humility, which she said came through strongly in the nomination sent in by longtime friend, patient, and fellow Oconee Lions Club member Dan Stuart.

Stuart characterized the award as a recognition “for those who go above and beyond their duty.”

Jenkins' volunteer work in the community coupled with his vision trips abroad made him Stuart's choice for the award – and the choice of the judges.

But why does he sacrifice time with his family and at his practice to volunteer for free?

“I think it's his faith,” said Stuart, membership chairman of the Oconee Lions Club . “I think he realizes that he's been blessed and he realized there are a lot of people out there who need help.”

For Jenkins, the inspiration came in 1995 with the passing of his father. Working at Lenscrafters at the time, he began to take notice of an opportunity to go on an organized overseas vision care trip. After he took notice, it wasn't long before he took flight.

“I was nervous, I wasn't sure what I was getting into,” he said of his first trip to the Philippines in 1996. Having only been to the Bahamas after his wedding, Jenkins was unaccustomed to international travel, but decided to go anyway.

“That opportunity was sitting there and I decided, 'hey, there's somebody looking for doctors to help them,'” Jenkins said.

Teams of about 25 to 30 doctors, plus local help, see about 10,000 people on an average two week trip abroad, he said. Multiply that by the 15 times Jenkins has boarded an international plane to spread vision, and you'll see the lives he's touched. And now, so can they.

“That's what I was trained to do,” he said. “It seems like if you help somebody that's suffering from poor vision, it might put them in a better position to do other things, to help them try to get where they need to be, at least one step that's not holding them back anymore. [We] try to help give them a chance for a better opportunity.”

Jenkins was quick to divert attention away from himself and eager to give the credit to the Oconee Lions Club and the Georgia Lions Lighthouse Foundation.

“I feel like we all should be doing something if we're capable and have the opportunity, in one form or another,” he said.

Kimberly Carey is the office manager at Jenkins' practice, Jenkins Vision Care off Prince Avenue in Athens. For almost ten years, she's seen him walk out the door to jet to far-off countries, bringing, along with his passport, the gift of better vision. She has also seen the everyday things Jenkins does to increase the quality of life right here in America.

He volunteers at local schools, the Mercy Health Center off Oglethorpe Avenue and the Georgia Lions Lighthouse Foundation's vision vans to help uninsured Georgians get the eye exams and corrective devices they need.

“This is what he has decided to do with his life, is to be an eye doctor,” Carey said. “We'll go without a doctor one day at work – no patients on our schedule – just so there's a doctor at those vision vans.”

She said his philosophy is to make sure people who need help come into the office, regardless of financial situation, in case there is something wrong.

“His heart's big like that, he makes sure they're taken care of,” she said. “He's just a really nice person to work for.”

Stuart, a retired Navy veteran and former assistant registrar at the University of Georgia, said Jenkins doesn't go the extra mile for the attention or the spotlight. In fact, he said Jenkins doesn't like the attention to be on him.

“It's a lifetime award that's for someone who has been doing things for a long long time, and Joel has been doing that," he said. “He's got a wife and two kids and he takes time away from them and his business to do those things. I mean, gee whiz. I don't think there's a lot of people that would do that.”