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Boone resident named a CNN Hero
Photo Courtesy of CNN
Dickson “Doc” Hendley raises money for well projects in other countries by holding wine tastings.
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Published: November 5, 2009
BOONE - Dickson "Doc" Hendley was a bartender who knew his Bible.
He knew that Jesus had turned water into wine. It made him wonder whether the people he saw, the ones who sat on barstools night after night, could reverse the miracle.
He started holding wine tastings to raise money to drill wells for people in other countries who didn't have clean drinking water.
When he left N.C. State University with a communications degree in 2004, he was a self-described average student who wasn't well-known outside of the places where he had been a bartender working his way through school.
But at noon today he will be honored at a campus rally in Raleigh as a CNN Hero for his Wine to Water ministry, which brings sustainable drinking water to people in such places as Sudan, Uganda and Cambodia.
His work earned him a spot as one of the cable news network's Top 10 Heroes for 2009. He was selected from among more than 9,000 nominees.
The public will be able to vote on the CNN Hero of the Year through Nov. 19 . The winner will be featured on a Thanksgiving-night show, with Anderson Cooper as the host.
"It's crazy," Hendley, 30, said of the attention, talking by cell phone from his car yesterday as he drove from Boone to the N.C. State campus where he was to be guest speaker for a homecoming activity.
"When I started the organization when I left Raleigh, nobody in Raleigh knew who I was outside of the service industry," he said. "Now to come back and have everybody know, to have the mayor and the chancellor there, that is definitely an honor to go back to that warm a welcome."
Hendley dropped out of school for a while to travel. He was moved by the people he saw who had to walk miles for clean drinking water, if they had water at all.
When he got back, he started holding the wine tastings to raise money for drilling wells.
After graduation, he moved to Boone to join his parents. His father suggested that he visit Kenny Isaacs, who had done drilling projects for Samaritan's Purse, the international Christian relief agency run by Franklin Graham.
Hendley went there with the idea of donating the money from the wine tastings. He wound up with a job.
While in the Darfur region of Sudan, he met Isaacs' son, Coy Isaacs, who eventually would work with him on Wine to Water.
They especially wanted to teach people how to do the work and sustain their own water systems.
Hendley left Samaritan's Purse, and continued working on his own. In 2007, Wine to Water became its own private, nonprofit organization.
Hendley said that Samaritan's Purse is a phenomenal organization with a great mission, and he still looks for advice there. But he is looking for a different donor base.
He said he thought that people in churches had lots of options for getting involved, but that people he met as a bartender would also like to help others, to be a part of something.
"Our foundation is on how Christ lived his life," Hendley said. "We are founded on the principals he brought and taught people to live by. A lot of times he was meeting people's physical needs first."
The group has helped more than 25,000 people so far.
Hendley just returned from Wine to Water's latest project, digging a well for an orphanage in Trujillo, Peru. A contractor wanted $25,000 to do the job. Water to Wine is doing it for $5,000.
In Cambodia, Water to Wine drilled more than 70 wells. The typical cost was about $2,500 when they started, but by making hand pumps with local materials and teaching people how to do the work they have got the cost down to $500 a well.
If he wins the CNN award, he will get $100,000 for the program, money that could get a lot of water flowing. But the publicity has made a difference.
"It has been more than a blessing," Hendley said, adding, "It's been huge just to tell the world what we're trying to do."
mmitchell@wsjournal.com
667-5691
To vote for Water to Wine, go to www.cnn.com/heroes. People can also vote at www.winetowater.org.
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