 Dickson "Doc" Hendley helps drill a well in Ethiopia. Hendley has helped bring clean water to countries all over the globe. Photo by Doc Hendley
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by EMILY MELTON
Lifestyles Editor
Larry King interviewed him a few months ago.
Last week, it was Anderson Cooper.
He is a father, a husband and a bartender, and if he were asked, he would say he is a normal man who lives a normal life.
Featured as one of CNN’s top 25 Heroes of 2009, Dickson “Doc” Hendley is currently in the running to be named CNN’s Hero of the Year.
Hendley was
selected after founding Wine to Water, a Boone-based non-profit
organization that uses profit from wine sales to provide
underprivileged countries with clean water.
Before it was founded, Hendley bartended for four years.
While
bartending, he began noticing the lack of access to clean water and how
it significantly affected communities across the world.
“One night…I couldn’t sleep,” Hendley said. “I grabbed a pad and paper and began writing.”
The page was soon filled with his ideas of how to help the world’s water crisis.
“I figured the bar crowd and service industry would be a great resource to tap into for funding water projects,” Hendley said.
 Hendley digs a well for an orphanage in Peru. Photo by Doc Hendley
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Since then, he has been to Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Cambodia and Peru, among other countries.
He has drilled and repaired broken wells, installed water filters and built rainwater containment systems.
He has witnessed an execution-style murder and has been ambushed, shot at and robbed by Janjaweed terrorists.
However, seeing thousands of people given access to clean water made everything worthwhile, he said.
“More
children die from water-related illnesses than HIV [and] AIDS, malaria
and [tuberculosis] combined,” he said. “Clean water is imperative to a
country’s infrastructure if it ever hopes to move from being developing
to developed.”
Annie Clawson, vice president of Wine to Water, has helped Hendley in his quest.
Clawson
once worked overseas for an international school in Bangkok, Thailand
and then with Samaritan’s Purse Children’s Heart Project in Boone.
Because stress began to wear on her, she took a break from work and met Hendley shortly afterward.
“To be
honest, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to jump back into non-profit work at
first, but the more I learned about Wine To Water, the more I felt my
heart beating again,” Clawson said. “As Americans, we take for granted
[going] to the kitchen to get a glass of water.”
Clawson
attributes the lack of clean water to the cycle of poverty, explaining
that women and children in underprivileged countries spend their days
collecting water, leaving them uneducated and pressed to find jobs.
Without education, they are unable to learn about the prevention of AIDS, malaria and similar diseases, she said.
Clawson encourages others to support Wine to Water as it gains exposure through CNN.
Votes are being cast until Nov. 19 at CNN.com/heroes and the top 10 heroes will be announced Thanksgiving night at 9 p.m.
Each
finalist will receive $25,000, and according to CNN.com, the show
culminates with the announcement of the 2009 CNN Hero of the Year, who
will receive an additional $100,000.
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