Teachers
stick around for fundraiser WHS club hosts duct-tape benefit for
Wine to Water
By Cara Kelly
Watauga High School teachers Steve Ahn and Jasyn Klambroski
found themselves duct-taped to a wall Wednesday afternoon.
Watauga High School teacher
Jasyn Klambroski, center, is duct-taped to a wall by students
and DECA members Tucker Isaacs, left, and T.J. Thompson.
Photo by Cara
Kelly
As part of an annual fundraiser sponsored by DECA, the marketing
club at WHS, Ahn and Klambroski helped raise money for the local
nonprofit organization Wine to Water by charging students $1 per
strip of duct tape, which were subsequently used to fasten the
educators to a wall by the cafeteria.
For the third annual Duct Tape Fundraiser, DECA members encouraged
fellow students to participate by inspiring a friendly battle
between the teachers to see who would receive the highest profit
margin and the most duct tape.
“This year we thought it would be cool to have a competition,
and it has worked really well,” DECA advisor Alison Garrett
said.
The popular fundraising effort will benefit Wine to Water, an
organization dedicated to providing clean water and sanitation
to people in need around the world.
Inspired by the global crisis for clean water, founder and executive
director Doc Hendley has initiated projects in seven countries
throughout East Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
After paying for college by working various bartending jobs, Hendley
sought a way to use his skill of pouring drinks to help others
in need and put his Christian beliefs into practice.
Subsequently, Wine to Water derives its name and purpose from
a passage in the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Bible.
Having run out of wine during a wedding, Jesus turned water into
wine for the excited guests. Hendley decided to take the miracle
depicted in the Bible and reverse it to aid those dying from dehydration
and water-born illnesses.
Through the sale of bottles of wine and wine tastings, Hendley
has started to realize his dream.
“We work on projects all over the world, but the biggest
right now is in Northern Uganda,” Hendley said. “We
are working on a three-year push for water filtration systems
that use bio safe filters.”
According to a study performed by the Water Management Institute
in Colombo, Sri Lanka, one third of the world’s population
suffers from water scarcity, a situation that has materialized
five years earlier than previously predicted.
Hendley, who has traveled to impoverished places in both Africa
and South America, has experienced the scarcity of clean water
firsthand.
“If you drill a well in a village, typically the water is
clean when it comes from the ground, but by the time it is consumed
it is filthy,” Hendley said. “Household water treatment
or point of use treatments are the most effective way of decreasing
water born illnesses because you are cleaning the water right
before consumption, so there is a huge push in the humanitarian
world for this type of filter.”
Employees and volunteers of Wine to Water hope to focus their
efforts on increasing this type of filtration process in third
world countries.
“We are building at least 1,000 of these filters at a minimum.
We’ll be doing quite a bit more as we continue to grow from
that point,” Hendley said about the organization’s recent
efforts. “We are building factories where they will be produced
and are working on hygiene education, teaching people and children
how to be clean and avoid illness.”
Hendley said that although aid organizations throughout the world
have made progress in reducing the amount of deaths caused by
water-born illnesses, a standstill in progress has become an issue.
“We are big on getting school-aged kids involved on the education
side, to get them interested in something going on globally,”
Hendley said. “We’ve also been at a stalemate for years
with the water crisis because not enough people are involved,
so we are trying to get the younger generations inspired and involved.”
DECA participates in several other service projects throughout
the year and also enters many competitions.
At the state level, members have the chance to compete in more
than 40 different events.
“For the last four years, we have qualified during state
competition to go to the international competition,” Garrett
said.
Although the marketing teacher is striving not to be overconfident,
she has started to anticipate members of WHS DECA club qualifying
for the international competition, which will be held in Anaheim,
Calif.
To raise money for entry fees and transportation costs, the club
sold caramel apples at the Mast General Store in Valle Crucis
Saturday and hosted a raffle that was awarded Friday during WHS’s
homecoming game, in coordination with national DECA week.
To donate to Wine to Water, contact Hendley at winetowater.org
or by calling (828) 406-1955.
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