“I`d Like to Give Dreams to My Son`s Juniors“

It was recently reported that an old man had secretly donated 100 million won of scholarship to Hwangji High School, the alma mater of his son who had passed away during military service, in Taebaek City, Gangwon Province.

The donator is Mr. Lim Woo-Sup (71), who has raised chickens in Taebaek since 1964, and his four sons graduated from Hwangji High School. His donation was accidentally found out in the process of the school`s secret establishing of a foundation.

Mr. Lim said that, "I sometimes went to the school`s playground when I thought of my youngest son who died during his military service in 1991. And I decided to donate money for scholarship to the school in which my sons had studied."

He continued, "Young people should have dreams. I decided to donate scholarship in order to plant a `can-do` spirit to the poor students."

After his military service in an intelligence agency, Lim started his poor living in Taebaek, with 7 family members, including his mother-in-law, at a small cottage, in 1964.

His farm life began with raising 250 chickens, and it became a large chicken farm of 12,000 chickens in 1983.

He donated 100 million won to Hwangji High School, with his third son and daughter-in-law, on Dec. 8th, his 71st birthday, saying, "Give this money secretly to poor students."

Mr. Lim had kept the 5.3 million won that he hah received as a compensation for the death of his son Byung-Sun in 1991 because of his son buried in his mind and donated the money for the local scholarship to Taebaek City in 1994.

Mr. Lim, bereaved after the death of his wife 5 years ago, has successfully brought up his three sons as businessman, schoolteacher, and a researcher.

sunghyun@donga.com