Personal War on Poverty : Charity: A Los Angeles millionaire has started a foundation to help women in the Third World nations by garnering financial support from U.S. corporations.

For one week this summer, globe-trotter Noel Irwin-Hentschel experienced the flip side of Mexico: No lounging on sun-drenched beaches, no room service at a posh hotel. Just the friendship of the people of Tempoal, a rural village in the state of Veracruz where the women learned for the first time how to use mechanized corn grinders and make water pumps at a factory.

“Now they can make corn tortillas in less than an hour,” says Irwin-Hentschel about the daily task that used to take five to eight hours.

“And soon they’ll be exporting the water pumps to other developing countries where women like them are in need.”

It is for the women of Tempoal, of Costa Rica, of Ethiopia--the women of Third World countries--that Irwin-Hentschel, a 38-year-old millionaire, mother of five and a businesswoman with a big heart and deep pockets, has pledged to raise $1 million.

The money, channeled through the Noel Foundation that she founded earlier this year, will benefit the United Nations Development Fund for Women, known as UNIFEM, an organization that was founded to help women in the poorest regions of the world become self-sufficient.

Irwin-Hentschel aims to present the money--contributions from U.S. corporations--tonight at the United Nations when British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Philippine President Corazon Aquino, former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland will be honored, according to the invitations, for their “leadership and humanitarianism.”

Thatcher and Brundtland, who will be in New York attending the U. N. General Assembly, have confirmed their attendance to receive the Noel Foundations Awards from U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar.

The event, billed as “A Celebration of International Leadership,” is expected to be attended by 450 ambassadors, dignitaries, leaders and celebrities. Barbara Walters will serve as mistress of ceremonies, and the event’s planning committee of 36 personalities and business people includes Ivana Trump, Arlene Dahl, Carolina Herrera, Leigh Taylor-Young, Arianna Huffington, Georgia Frontiere and Joyce Rey.

Irwin-Hentschel, who owns a $75-million travel agency, says she is well-connected and has friends with even bigger connections.

“I first went after people I know in the corporate world to get donations and it just grew from there,” she says.

Since the creation of the foundation earlier this year, Irwin-Hentschel has been knocking on corporate doors across the United States. She has been selling corporate giants, including the Bank of California, Cosmo Oil Co. and the Hyatt Corp., Mitsubishi Bank, among others, on the need to assist economically disadvantaged women in underdeveloped countries. Most of the contributions have been between $50,000 to $100,000. Irwin-Hentschel believes she will reach her $1 million goal tonight, as last-minute pledges are made.

Many of the corporations have selected individual UNIFEM projects, which range from a toy manufacturing plant to literacy programs.

Irwin-Hentschel says although there are many worthy charitable organizations competing for the same corporate dollar, “part of our strategy in raising the money has been in matching companies and their interests, whether entrepreneurial, educational or environmental, to projects.”

Sally Ann Grossman, vice president of the Bank of California’s Inland Empire office, has known Irwin-Hentschel both professionally and personally since 1983. Grossman says her bank contributed to the Noel Foundation because “it’s a cause directed at such a grass-roots level for women.”

“The focus is on the women in Third World countries. And Noel, a bottom-line woman who has created a successful company of her own, has this idealistic bent that is really wonderful, something you don’t see in business.”

Irwin-Hentschel is hopeful others will dig deep into their pockets to help UNIFEM, she says while sitting in the Los Angeles office of AmericanTours International, a company she and a partner started with a credit card 13 years ago. Today it is the largest U.S. tour company for foreign visitors.

The first of 10 children, Irwin-Hentschel says of her middle-class upbringing in Los Angeles: “I was raised like the oldest son in the family.

“My father taught me to be very fair and to be value-oriented. My mother always pushed me forward and encouraged me to try anything.”

So after high school graduation, Irwin-Hentschel took part-time jobs to pay for a European adventure on $5 a day. The travel bug bit. She worked for a while as a travel guide in Israel and later, back in Los Angeles, landed at the tour desk for British Caledonian Airways. That experience eventually led to the creation of her own business.

She is married to Gordon Hentschel, a resort developer and manager, and the couple have five children between the ages of 5 and 12. Before they married, Irwin-Hentschel had adopted three children on her own. The children accompanied her on her first date with Hentschel. The couple have since adopted another child and she gave birth to a daughter five years ago.

“I want the best for them,” Irwin-Hentschel says. “I want them to be caring and independent.” And world travelers like herself.

Since her involvement with UNIFEM, Irwin-Hentschel has visited several of the organization’s projects in Central America. “I take the children with me, one at a time because I think it’s important for them to feel a commitment toward helping others.”

She says she is “not asking people to make the same pledge I’ve made” of time and money to start up the foundation. “I’d just like for corporate America to make a little commitment, to really feel good about becoming involved globally,” she says.

When Irwin-Hentschel heard about UNIFEM last year, she says she realized it was time “to give back something to the world.”

According to Debbie Czegledy,UNIFEM’s information officer, at least 400 projects in more than 100 countries are in need of assistance, which UNIFEM has had difficulty attracting since it was first begun in 1976. Annually, UNIFEM operates projects on a $10-million budget, with few donations coming from the private sector.

Originally started as the Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women, the organization has always relied upon governments’ support.

“We’re not as well-known as UNICEF,” Czegledy says. “We’ve had some corporate contact in the past, but we haven’t had the kind of corporate support Noel plans to provide for us.”

But the money, says Irwin-Hentschel, is not her foundation’s only or final goal. There are other projects on the board.

“It’s just the beginning,” she says. The foundation will continue fund-raising because it hopes to support educational projects in the United States for women and children next year.

Irwin-Hentschel says she wants people to know that “this is not a hobby.” Her name on the foundation “shows my personal commitment to the foundation. I’m lending my name and my support.” The name Noel, she points out, “means birth, new beginnings.”