Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute will host Doc Hendley, author of Wine To Water: How One Man Saved Himself While Trying to Save the World, for the 2019 Laurette LePrevost Writers Symposium.
The college will host a reading and discussion session with Hendley on Thursday, March 28 at 12 p.m. on CCC&TI’s Watauga Campus and at 7 p.m. at the J.E. Broyhill Civic Center in Lenoir. On Friday, March 29, the college will host a reading and discussion with Hendley at 12 p.m. in the gym on the Caldwell Campus in Hudson. All events are free and open to the public.
The Symposium also will include book clubs focusing on Hendley’s Wine To Water on both campuses for students, faculty, staff and the community.
The Watauga Campus in Boone will host its book club on Wednesday, March 20 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. in the Watauga Campus library (Building W371). The Caldwell Campus in Hudson will host its book club at 12 p.m. on March 12, March 19 and March 26 in the Library (E Building). Light refreshments will be served and attendance will be taken for instructors who are offering extra credit.
Wine To Water: How One Man Saved Himself While Trying to Save the World is Doc Hendley’s story about braving tribal warfare to help bring clean water to far-flung regions of the world. It’s an inspirational tale of how one ordinary person can make a difference. Many CCC&TI students are reading Hendley’s novel this semester as part of the curriculum. Hendley’s book is available for purchase in the campus bookstores.
Dickson Beattie “Doc” Hendley was a recent N.C. State graduate working as a bartender in Raleigh when he became inspired to do something about the severity of worldwide water shortages. He learned that at least 1 in 6 people worldwide lack access to safe water, and that preventable water-borne illnesses kill far more children (15 million) each year than HIV/AIDs and malaria combined. Using his connections and people skills, his first fundraiser in 2004 raised $6,000. In 2007, Hendley founded Wine to Water, which raises money and provides wells and water purification systems to hundreds of thousands of people in Third-World countries. Hendley spent a year in Darfur to repair, sanitize and build wells, for which he was named a “Top 10 CNN Hero” in 2009.
Today, Wine to Water has helped 338 communities across the world with 984 projects that have given 742,794 people access to clean water. Hendley lives in Boone with his wife and children.
Laurette LePrevost, former Dean of Arts and Sciences for CCC&TI, was instrumental in building the Writers Symposium into an annual event that has brought in such renowned writers as Maya Angelou, Ernest Gaines, Nikki Giovanni, Robert Morgan and Clyde Edgerton. Under her leadership and guidance, CCC&TI’s symposium has become the longest-running consecutively held Writers Symposium in western North Carolina and one of the longest in the Southeast. The Writers Symposium series was renamed in her honor when she retired in 2004.
Support for the Laurette LePrevost Writers Symposium is provided by the Foundation of Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute.
