The Greatest Conglomerate Ever With the American Lottery

38. Is there a job for us?

The next day, the main figures of our welfare corporation gathered together.

Professor Jang Young-dong, the president of the corporation, my dad, the board member and secretary general, lawyer Park Hong-ryul, who had somehow been dragged into the organization because of his relationship with me, and Jang Yoo-hwan, the director of Yang Hye-won, and my brothers Ki-dong and Seon.

Originally, social welfare corporations were supposed to have seven directors and two auditors, and one-third of the directors were supposed to be appointed from among people recommended by the city or provincial social security committee or community security council.

In the end, our social welfare corporation, the Jeonghwa Foundation, was also recommended by the local government, but without them, it’s just us, and we have our own board of directors.

Since it’s a welfare corporation where everything is spent with my own money, the directors recommended by the local government don’t tackle me unless I do something particularly strange.

“You’ve done a great job. I didn’t think you’d be able to complete such an impressive building in less than a year. Professor Zhang, Attorney Park, and my father—.”

“hahahahaha!”

“Fuhahahaha!”

Everyone burst out laughing at my father.

What do you call him then?

Mr. Kang Mansoo or Mr. Secretary General?

I’m not even on the board of directors, so I should call him dad.

I’m not Hong Gil-dong, so it’s not like I can’t call my dad dad.

But I’m a little embarrassed to call him dad.

“Humph, Director Zhang and my brothers have done a lot of hard work, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

“hahahahaha, that’s not too much to ask. It was all done with the money you gave us.”

Prof. Zhang clapped his hands and humbled himself.

Professor Zhang had long since given up on me.

I insisted.

At first, he was embarrassed because he refused to lower his stakes even when I asked him to, but when I threatened to cut off his money if he didn’t lower his stakes, he laughed and started to lower his stakes.

When I looked at him, he and my dad seemed to get along very well, but I don’t know how.

“So, let me ask you a few questions: what’s the status of support at our ladder center?”

“I’ll tell you that.”

“You mean you, or your dad?”

“Yes, because I’m actually leading the support. First of all, our current main target project of the Purification Welfare Foundation is going in two directions. The first, as you all know, is the support for care leavers who are poorly supported by the state, which involves the construction and operation of ladder centers to address their eating and sleeping needs, so that they can adjust to society normally and become dignified members of society.”

This was a dad with a sneaky honorific.

I guess it’s natural because he’s been in society for a long time, and there’s also Professor Jang Young-dong and lawyer Park Hong-ryul.

Should I put myself on the list?

“Mr. Secretary-General, let’s say we’ve solved at least the ceremonial housing problem by building the center. The problem is how to run the program. We can’t take care of them until they die, can we? Now that they’re hardware, the next problem is getting them to fit into society, right?”

“Exactly, so we’re going to give them one-on-one career counseling to figure out the best career path for each of them, and we’ll support them at the center accordingly. We have some counselors, and we’re still recruiting.”

“Then to what extent will the support be provided? In order to fulfill their dreams, the children will need to attend cram schools, buy textbooks, and have a minimum amount of pocket money for transportation, lunch, etc. Also, let’s say they work hard and get accepted to a university. What about the university tuition? I don’t know because I didn’t go to university.”

“Uh-huh—.”

Dad coughed and blushed a little as if he was being poked.

“Anyway, what about college tuition and pocket money and stuff?”

“I’ll tell you about that.”

Mr. Zhang pitched into relief.

“College tuition varies slightly by municipality. In general, there are local governments that support from 2 million won to 5 million won for one time, and there are local governments in Gwangju, Gyeongbuk, and Gyeongnam that don’t support at all.”

“One time? They only support it once? What other local governments don’t have it?”

“Well, there’s something called local governments, but it’s not like there’s no way to pay for college, because there are all kinds of scholarships, and there are student loans.”

“So?”

“The problem is that college in Korea is not just about tuition. You also have to pay for books, lunch, transportation, internships, and so on. That’s why a lot of kids drop out.”

“What about the government?”

“The government only provides 300,000 won for three years, but think about it. They don’t get most of their daily needs from their parents like normal kids do. They have to buy and pay for everything themselves. Do you think 300,000 won is enough? It’s not even close.”

“Hmmm—.”

In short, there are a lot of problems, and money can solve them.

We just need to keep hiring people to mentor and counsel the kids.

I took a moment to organize my thoughts and then spoke up.

“Mr. Chairman.”

“Yes, sir.”

It’s Professor Zhang, or rather, Chairman Zhang, using respectful language again because it’s become an official position.

“Why don’t we speed up our business?”

“How?”

“First, the ladder center. We’ve built the Park Dal-dong Center, but we can only accommodate 250 children. Let’s quickly build an additional center to accommodate more children.”

“You’re going to build another one? That’s a lot of pressure, isn’t it?”

“No, we’ll build two at the same time. Never mind the funding burden, we’ve already given up on the idea of providing 50 billion this year.”

“Two, two at the same time?”

“Yes, we’ll look for a location outside of Eunpyeong-gu or towards Gupabal or Samsong, and build one there and one above Sanggye-dong or towards Guri, and build two at the same time. It would be nice to have a large capacity, but if the number of people increases, there will be a lot of commotion around, so let’s build one that can accommodate about 300 people.”

“The Parkdal-dong ladder center was built cheaply because we were lucky enough to get land owned by the Ministry of Defense at a low price, so you should think about that.”

“The chairman’s right, Cheol-sik, but isn’t this going too far?”

Dad chimed in with a worried look.

“It’s not too much, so don’t worry. I’m embarrassed to tell you this, but in the first quarter of this year, I made over 1 trillion won in profit alone.”

“One, trillion?”

“Huh! A trillion?”

“…”

“…”

Everyone, including my dad, froze at my words.

It’s embarrassing, but they keep worrying about the financial burden, so I have to keep it to myself.

“Mansu, brother.”

“Yes, brother.”

“What is this son of yours? I heard you were in business and got screwed?”

“…”

Oh, and the chairman, too. Dad giggled embarrassedly.

“Humph, whatever, so you’ll never have to worry about money again. I’m just taking money out of the equation so it doesn’t affect my business at all.”

“Okay, heh heh heh!”

“As for the center, please do so. Leave the construction to Mr. Park, the chairman of Daeyang, and he’ll keep it going as cheaply as he can. I basically told him that yesterday. Of course, you’ll have to get comparative quotes from other companies, because I don’t fully trust him yet.”

“Okay.”

Don’t mess with me on construction costs.

I won’t let you get away with it.

“And I want to take responsibility for the kids once they’re in our arms, even if the others can’t. I want you to drastically increase the support for the kids who come into the center. If a child who is doing well in school wants to go to medical school, then send them. No matter how much it costs, I will pay for all of their tuition. Ms. Yang, please make sure the children understand this. As long as they study hard and are good and upright, they’ll be able to do whatever they want to do.”

“Heh—.”

“If you want to go to the academy, I can’t let you take all the courses you want like the rich kids, but at least let you take the minimum required subjects. I don’t want to hear that you didn’t study because you couldn’t go to the academy.”

“hahahahaha, thank you, my lord!”

“Lastly, be realistic with the kids’ pocket money, not as lavishly as the kids from rich families, but at least give them some. They’ll want to have a beer once in a while, and shouldn’t they have some hobbies that don’t cost much? I didn’t go to college, so I don’t know, but—.”

“Why don’t you shut up?”

Dad sounds a little horny.

Let’s stop sulking.

You know what I mean, right?”

“hehehehe, of course. I’ll calculate a reasonable allowance for them, as long as they don’t get lazy or stretched.”

These are children without or abandoned parents.

We can’t do 100% of the work for them like we can for the well-off kids with parents.

But we can at least give them a similar start.

So that one day they can overcome all the disadvantages and soar, depending on their own efforts.

Isn’t that why our center is called Ladder?

The second item on the agenda is to support children in nursery schools, and we have decided to support high school students from nursery schools in Gyeonggi and Seoul to take one course of their choice, and for those with excellent grades, we will partially support university tuition.

But what about the children in Incheon, Chungcheong Province, Gyeongsang Province, and Jeolla Province?

I can’t take care of all the children in the world, right?

I’ll do what I can, one by one.

“Cheol-sik!”

“Huh? Dad?”

He called out to me as we drove home from work in his car.

“You know, you’re really good today.”

“Like what?”

“You were so good, chairing that meeting in front of all those Supreme Court justices and high court associate justices. Do you know how proud your dad was?”

“Oh, with what?”

“No, I know you’re my baby, but you’re really good.”

“Hmph, that’s enough.”

“By the way.”

“What?”

“Can you please stop with that college-bound bullsh*t? Even if I’m in the wrong, do you think it’s cool to poke me in the chest like that, huh? Do you think it’s cool, you bastard!”

“…”

And so began a day that began with praise and ended with bruises.

“Really? You’re not coming to America?”

“Yeah, I’ve been talking about it since before I signaled.”

The day before I left for the U.S., I was drinking soju with my brothers Ki-dong and Shin, and they told me they weren’t coming.

They say they’re busy building a ladder center and founding a welfare foundation.

“Why? What’s the reason?”

“Then let me ask you a question. Why did you ask us to come to the U.S.? Do you have a job for us?”

“…”

Actually, it was a bit of an impromptu decision to ask my brothers to come to the United States.

I hadn’t seen Yang Hye-won for a long time, so I was very happy to see her, and things weren’t going well with Ki-dong and Shin.

Moreover, it was the beginning of my stay in the U.S. and I was psychologically unstable, so I thought that having two people I vaguely trusted come to the U.S. would be a great support.

But honestly, I didn’t feel that way now that I’m acclimatized.

So when my brothers came, I was going to slowly introduce them to the U.S. and let them learn to work, and if they couldn’t adjust, I was going to let them work at Aegis, their original majors.

“Both Shin and I love our current jobs, and even though we took them on by accident, they are not that rewarding. Besides, the chairman and your father are very nice, and we’ve built the welfare foundation from the ground up, so we’re in a position of authority, and we’re proud that we’re important people here. But what if we go to America?”

“Hmmm—.”

“I know what you were thinking at the time, but it’s a different situation now, and you’ve got Georgina and Jeffrey and John, who we all know, firmly entrenched beside you, so why would we go to America? We could work here and become welfare tycoons?”

“What’s a welfare tycoon?”

“Dude, you’re going to keep sponsoring us, so we’ll be tycoons, and you’ll have to work hard for your money?”

“Fuhahahahaha!”

“hahahahaha!”

“hahahahaha!”

Yes, this is the choice of the older brothers, I’ll work hard to make money and sponsor them.

It doesn’t matter if we’re in Korea or America.