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by Dave Savini
NAPERVILLE, Ill. (CBS) ― Nine-year-old Jheronda Latson wished for a bicycle, but her family could not afford one. Then a thoughtful person from the Naperville/Bolingbrook area donated one; leaving it at a donation collection box near the intersection of Naperville and Boughton Road.

The sign on the big blue box claimed it belonged to F.C.H.N., a charity that helps feed and clothe needy families, like Jheronda Latson, who live in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood. A CBS 2/Naperville Sun investigation found F.C.H.N. is a legitimate charity, but the collection boxes advertising its name are bogus. Tons of clothing and shoes put in these donation boxes are diverted to a private company.

"We never got anything; no toys, no shoes, no coats, no boots," said a tearful Mother Betty Price who runs the charity.

The company that did collect the goods is a used clothing resale business stretching from Naperville to the Mexican border. The alleged charity box bandits have been profiting off donation boxes scattered through the western suburbs including Naperville, Bolingbrook, Downers Grove and Carol Stream. Peddling used clothing is the company's primary interest. So donated toys, bikes and scooters are often thrown in the garbage; including a bike, scooter and that could have gone to Jheronda Latson and her siblings.

"Sad," said Latson when she learned of the children's things being junked.

"That isn't right," says an angry Mother Price. "How could somebody do this to us. We need those donations. We have little children with no shoes who come to me and say Mother Betty do you have any shoes and here they are shipping truckloads."

Mother Price is especially angry, because she was unaware, until CBS2/Naperville Sun contacted her, that the donation boxes were in communities and people were donating tons of goods. The alleged scam had flourished for three years until this investigation uncovered the boxes with a telephone number and web site printed on them that didn't belong to the charity. It belonged to a man named Frank Meek.

Meek, who is originally from Indiana, is the mastermind behind the operation and runs a for profit warehouse in Laredo, Texas called La America Ropa Usada. He first met mother price 3 years ago when he offered to help her collect donations. He then soon told her the idea failed.

Meek says he had second thoughts because of the expense involved with shipping the clothes. "The numbers didn't work out," said Meek. "It was too expensive for us to make it work."

Later, Meek admitted the numbers did work for him. He confirmed he receives about a dozen 53-foot shipping containers full of clothing a year. Each load he says is worth about $5,000 dollars in sales. That's $150,000 dollars in the last three years. Other sources in the used clothing industry say Meek may be downplaying the sales figures. Some estimate Meek could earned as much as $300,000 dollars considering the number of truckloads he handled.

"I was wrong and I know I should have done more for Betty," says Meek.

For months, our investigators followed the men Meek hired to collect the donations -- Willie Boyd of Westmont and Carl Honeywood formerly of Aurora. We watched as they emptied full donation boxes. They collected gently worn shirts, sweaters, baby clothes, blankets and coats.

Then we followed them as they transported the goods to 53-foot shipping containers and we traced those containers to Frank Meek.

When confronted the collectors claimed they never were involved in the shipment of clothes to Texas.

"We take them to charity," stated Boyd. Later, when CBS2 Boyd he had been captured on surveillance tape diverting the donations, he admitted he had never before been to the charity.

It appears Meek only was interested in the clothing. Toys take up too much room on the trailers and valuable space is needed for the easier to sell clothing. So our investigators watched as the collectors dumped the toys, bicycles and scooters in garbage cans in Downer's Grove and Westmont. Then our investigators retrieved them and brought the toys to the children of F.C.H.N. Jheronda got the bike. Her sister got a scooter, her brother a baseball glove and countless other children will benefit from the bags of other toys.

Mother Price is thankful to the donors, even though her organization did not receive the goods people gave. The donations were made by people like Kimberly Johnson of Aurora. Johnson donated baby clothes, dropping them in one of these charity boxes in a Naperville parking lot at 95th street and route 59, believing it would go to the needy.

"I think it is disappointing to learn my donation isn't getting to the charity, and that is wrong," says Johnson. "I am glad you are exposing this because somebody needs to do something about it to stop it."

Johnson is one of hundreds of suburbanites our investigation found trying to give their gently used clothing to charity only to have it end up on a shipping container headed to Meek in Laredo, Texas, a community bordering Mexico.

"How did you get onto this?" asked a surprised Meek when confronted about the diverted donations. After several attempts to defend his operation, Meek finally admitted he was wrong and he should have helped the charity more.

"I couldn't pay my light bill or my gas bill at the mission and here he is collecting tons of clothes and selling them for a profit," said a crying Mother Price.

The recycled clothing business is a booming billion dollar industry worldwide. There are hundreds of collection boxes across the Chicagoland area. Some boxes advertise they are for-profit companies encouraging recycling to keep landfills from running out of space. Other collection boxes advertise charities. Naperville and DuPage and Will Counties are seen as extremely generous areas with high quality used clothing according to industry sources.

Meek says he has given $901 dollars in food donations to F.C.H.N. Mother Price thought it was just a donation and didn't know he was collecting clothes and other items using her organization's name.

"He came here and got to know us and gave us some stuff and then he disappeared to Texas," says Mother Price. "He never gave us anything relating to the collection box program."

She wants Meek held accountable. After CBS 2/Naperville Sun informed her of its probe, Mother Price contacted the Illinois Attorney General's office. The agency launched an investigation into Meek for running an unregistered charity program and collecting the donated goods.

To donate to the real charity:
F.C.H.N. PROGRAM
Feed, Clothe, and Help the Needy
1234 W. 59th Street
Chicago, Il 60636
Telephone: 773-436-8277
Fax: 773-436-8282

(CBS 2 and the Naperville Sun are news partners covering stories in the western suburbs of Chicago. If you know of stories happening in this region,