Chapter 912: Charity and Using Money to Convince People
This was different from when Luke had caught the two boys and put them to work.
That had just been a verbal agreement and had been paid in cash; Luke wasn’t afraid of the two boys suing him.
Foggy thought for a moment, but still hesitated. “Will that… work?”
Luke took another sip of beer and said unhurriedly, “Charlie and Raqael were responsible for transporting trash and construction materials during the renovation. I only gave them 20 dollars an hour.”
Foggy and Matt were lost for words.
Of course they knew that. Temple had mentioned it to them.
At a regular maintenance company, the hourly wage for interns, even unskilled ones, wouldn’t be less than 50 dollars.
The workers themselves couldn’t make that much money, and most of it was taken by the maintenance company.
Thinking that, Foggy and Matt found the suggestion interesting.
Luke said with a smile, “Also, Foggy, didn’t you say that you know a friend who does maintenance work? He was the one who taught you how to fix Elena’s water pipe. It would be good if you can find a few suitable workers to help those families save money.”
Foggy scratched his head. “Is that so? That’s indeed worth considering.”
Luke continued, “Charlie and Raqael will be temp workers. Oh, right, I saw seven or eight of them last time. Their leader seems to be called Hudson or something! These kids don’t seem to have anything to do. Why don’t you contact the adults in their families? Maybe they need this part-time job too.”
Foggy and Matt were both stunned.
At this point, they finally understood.
What did Charlie, Raqael, and Hudson have in common?
Firstly, they were all minors in Clinton.
Secondly, they had all had an eye on Luke’s new home.
What a “big heart”! Foggy and Matt couldn’t help criticizing him inwardly.
But Luke’s proposal was indeed feasible. If it succeeded, n.o.body would lose anything. At most, the kids who were loafing around would get a taste of physical labor.
Also, this was a proper job with pay.
Was that a bad thing for those kids? Definitely not.
It was just like how most children didn’t like to study, but was studying a bad thing? Many people only realized that studying was good when they grew up. It was just that children didn’t really enjoy it.
Luke didn’t mind that Foggy and Matt knew about his little scheme.
This was an open conspiracy.
In any case… he had already given them the money!
He was the one paying people to work, so he didn’t feel guilty at all.
That charity foundation and 2.3 million dollars were things he had set up with a genuine ident.i.ty.
Luke had long used the police’s missing person information to come up with a bunch of unimportant aliases.
Each alias would be abandoned after they were used once or twice. He wasn’t afraid of being investigated at all, so he would go straight to the casino to “wash clean” his dirty money.
To put it simply, he just needed to switch this cash for chips under this alias, lose a few rounds, then switch the chips back to money.
As long as the alias was registered as a taxpayer, it was legal income.
He couldn’t use this method with his real name, nor was it suitable for one alias to deal with large quant.i.ties of money, as that would draw too much attention.
But it wasn’t a problem to use a bunch of genuine aliases to wash clean some money as backup.
They didn’t have much money in their accounts, ranging from a million to 100,000 or even 10,000.
Luke had been using these aliases to rent cars and accommodation or book plane tickets when he was out on personal missions.
This donation had been a last-minute idea.
He had donated money to the California earthquake fund under an alias before. In any case, he probably wouldn’t be able to use up all this money in his lifetime.
But after meeting Foggy and Matt, he felt that he could use this indirect approach to do good.
You could certainly hire lawyers to help the poor, but you couldn’t guarantee how professional they would be.
It was true that pro bono legal services existed.
When they said on TV, “If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense,” that was the court forcibly a.s.signing the cases to various law firms to provide legal aid.
The amount of this sort of pro bono work also fluctuated according to the number of lawyers on hand.
But law firms would leave most pro bono cases to the interns to handle so that the time of real lawyers wasn’t wasted.
Time was precious for real lawyers — 500 dollars an hour was expensive.
Interns weren’t up to that level yet, and lawyers didn’t spend much effort on pro bono cases.
It wasn’t uncommon for people who didn’t need to go to prison to be let down by irresponsible public lawyers who got them sent to prison for years.
In comparison, lawyers like Foggy and Matt who were willing to provide legal a.s.sistance for free and did their best were rare.
Luke didn’t mind spending some money to see how long they could last.
Even if they changed their ways in a year or two, they would still help many people during this period.
As long as they persisted, lawyer Matt would be a teammate worth investing in.
Thinking that, Luke said, “How about this? Since this is to help our neighbors in Clinton solve their problems, I’ll do my part as well. For every child who contributes in the rebuilding of Clinton, I’ll give their families 1,000 to 10,000 dollars.”
Foggy, Matt, and Karen all turned around in surprise. “Huh?”
Selina interjected, “Count me in.”
Luke nodded with a smile. “Okay. This donation will start at 100,000 dollars. You can draw up a donation contract tomorrow and get a check from us.”
Karen couldn’t help but ask, “That’s a huge sum of money. You’re not… going to reconsider?”
Even if it was the lowest amount, Luke and Selina still had to fork out 50,000 each.
Most families in America didn’t have 50,000 dollars in savings, let alone young people like Luke and Selina.
Karen was worried that they were biting off more than they could chew just to show off.
Luke was amused. “Don’t worry. In fact, we can pay 100,00 each. That depends on how many kids are willing to help rebuild the community.”
Matt’s heart skipped a beat when he heard that. He couldn’t help but shake his head and smile bitterly. This guy really knew how to hold a grudge.
He was clearly throwing the money at the brats Charlie, Raqael and Hudson to make them do hard labor.
But that wasn’t a bad thing for these rascals.
In their lives, those “brothers” of theirs would use money to lure them into joining gangs and selling drugs.
Only a big philanthropist would spend money to rope them into volunteer work.
Thinking that, Matt nodded decisively. “Okay. I’ll draft a donation contract for you tomorrow.”
Luke and Selina nodded, and everybody started discussing the development plan.