Doc Hendley stands with his son during the celebration of Wine to Water’s wine label Sept. 25. Photo by Christy Bullins

by EMILY MELTON
Lifestyles Editor

He was first among a pool of more than 9,000 viewer nominations, and on Thanksgiving night,  Boone resident Dickson “Doc” Hendley was recognized for being among CNN’s top 10 Heroes of 2009 during the third annual “CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute” premier telecast.

After being selected among the top 25, Hendley was then selected among the top 10 by a panel of widely known public service leaders and advocates, including Whoopi Goldberg, Phil Jackson, Elton John, Shakira and Colin Powell, among others.

Anderson Cooper hosted the event, filmed at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

“Let’s kick off with proof that heroes can be found in the least likely places: a man who serves drinks for a living ends up serving thousands and saving lives,” Cooper said.

Cooper then introduced Julia Louis-Dreyfus, most commonly known for her role as Elaine Benes in “Seinfeld.”

“You now have a reason to buy wine,” Louis-Dreyfus said. “A lot of it. You can order bottles, cases, a truckload and say: ‘I’m doing this to bring clean water to the world.’”

Hendley, she said, founded “Wine to Water” to help more than one billion people on the planet who go without clean drinking water and has since raised money to dig wells in Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, India, Cambodia and an orphanage in Peru.

“In the United States, we just can’t imagine that a glass of water could kill us,” Louis-Dreyfus said. “But Doc couldn’t stop thinking about it. And so, this bartender from North Carolina decided to meet one of the world’s greatest challenges.”

After Louis-Dreyfus reminded viewers “to toast Doc” after an order of wine, CNN aired a video that detailed Hendley’s experience of founding Wine to Water and included a clip that showed Hendley’s current well-digging project.

According to the video, children are most affected by the water crisis.

Because of the crisis, a child dies every 15 seconds, resulting in a higher number of deaths than those caused by HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

In the video, Hendley posed a solution to the problem.

“It can be as simple as installing a $25 water filter,” he said. “And that would completely revolutionize their entire life.”

Afterward, Hendley was then announced and brought to the stage.

“I was once asked, ‘Don’t you feel like, sometimes, your efforts are only a drop in the bucket?’” he said. “And I thought for a second and said, ‘Well, yes, my efforts are only a drop in the bucket. And it’s a big bucket. But without a start of one drop, and many other drops to follow, we’re never going to achieve our goal of providing clean water to people in need around this world.”

He then thanked his wife, Amber, his friend, Tasha Sullivan and his co-worker, Annie Clawson.

“In my opinion, this water crisis is the worst crisis facing humanity,” he said. “We can no longer ignore the number one killer of children in our world. We can no longer think that our humanitarian efforts are going to be successful if we don’t first address this issue of clean water. I’m asking you to please join us in this fight.”

Each honoree was awarded $25,000 from CNN and $10,000 from panel member and CEO of the Annenberg Foundation Wallis Annenberg; the winner, Efren Peñaflorida, selected by receiving a majority of 2.5 million online votes, was awarded an additional $100,000.

Peñaflorida spent the last 12 years teaching “pushcart classrooms” because of a recent surge in Philippine gang memberships. He founded an organization that creates a school-like atmosphere in locations of high likelihood of gang involvement and he and his team of teenager volunteers taught basic reading and writing skills to children on sidewalks and at trash dumps.

Nominations for CNN 2010 Heroes of the Year are currently being accepted at CNN.com/heroes.

Photo by Christy Bullins  |  The Appalachian

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Show/Hide comments