Ronnie makes a splash with £10,000 swim for Haiti

IT wasn’t your usual sort of birthday celebration, but then Crawfordsburn businessman Ronnie Foreman doesn’t do things by halves.

This year, to mark his 65th birthday, the Belfast Port commissioner decided to make a splash by swimming 65 lengths of his local pool - and raising more than £10,000 for a charity dedicated to helping impoverished people in Haiti.

Ronnie, who recently completed the challenge at the David Lloyd complex in Dundonald in just over an hour, raised the money for Irish-based charity Haven which builds houses in Haiti and has been at the coalface helping survivors since the devastating earthquake in January.

The businessman was recently appointed Northern Ireland ambassador for the charity which has just launched here and aims to attract local volunteers for its ‘Build It’ Weeks during 2010.

Haven is currently building latrines and providing temporary shelter for the thousands of Haitians who have been left homeless in the earthquake which is now believed to have killed 230,000 people.

Ronnie’s marathon swim, which amounted to over a mile, coincided with Haven’s first ‘Build It Week’ in Haiti, during which 260 volunteers built 41 houses, one basketball court and an extra classroom at a local school.

The money he has raised will now help the charity build a total of 1,000 new homes, upgrade 2,000 more and build community facilities in the Caribbean country by the end of 2011. It will also give a good head-start to this year’s two ‘Build It’ weeks scheduled to take place in April and October.