Wine to Water: How One Man Saved Himself While Trying to Save the World

The captivating story of an ordinary bartender turned humanitarian who’s changing the world through clean water.

Doc Hendley never set out to be a hero. A small-town bartender, Doc loved his Harley, music, and booze. Then he learned about the world’s water crisis, and decided to help by hosting fundraisers. But he wanted to do more and soon found himself traveling to one of the world’s most dangerous hot spots: Darfur, Sudan.

Doc was immediately cast into a crisis zone. The Sudanese government was wiping out entire villages through horrific state-sponsored genocide—and one of the chief weapons was water. By dumping corpses in water sources and shooting up water bladders, Janjaweed terrorists doomed hundreds of thousands of citizens to dehydration, disease, and death.

At just twenty-five years old, Doc was inexperienced, untrained, and in constant danger—but he stepped up to save lives. Alternatively begging international organizations for funding and dodging trigger-happy Janjaweed, Doc began drilling and repairing wells, bringing drinking water to those who desperately needed it. Wine to Water is his story about braving tribal warfare in far-flung regions of the world, and an inspirational tale of how one ordinary person can make a difference.

Doc Hendley is the founder and president of Wine to Water, a nonprofit organization focused on providing clean water to people in need around the world, from Darfur to Haiti. He lives in Boone, North Carolina, with his wife and two children.