Kellogg foundation serves up a bowl of goodness for Irish Haitian charity

Aer Lingus chairman Colm Barrington was among the members of the sailing set who turned up on Wednesday at a charity event in the Royal Irish Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire.

It was hosted by Enda O’Coineen, one of those serial entrepreneur types who is taking part in tomorrow’s Round Ireland race.

O'Coineen was raising funds for the Atlantic Youth Trust and the Soul of Haiti Foundation. Its board includes business figures such as Michael Cullen of Beacon Medical, a good pal of Denis O'Brien, as well as Neil O'Leary, one of the principals of Ion Equity and a former business partner of O'Brien.

Haiti is the common denominator here. O’Coineen recently built an Irish village in the capital Port Au Prince, which houses shops, several offices including those of Soul of Haiti and also Leslie Buckley’s charity Haven, as well as a pub called the Irish Embassy, which apparently may as well be the real thing.

Meanwhile, Sharon Dagg, the chief operations officer of Soul of Haiti, told me the WK Kellogg Foundation, linked to the man who founded the breakfast cereals company, recently agreed to donate $390,000 to a Haitian orphanage managed by the charity.

Soul of Haiti usually prefers trade as opposed to aid, however, and the Kellogg foundation has also agreed to donate a further $200,000 towards a working farm overseen by the charity.

Good on them. I’ll raise my bowl of cornflakes to that gesture in the morning.