Donors wrote checks to foundation set up to help families of hospitalized babies, and they got lost in mail for months
CHICAGO (CBS) -- If you ever doubt that one person can make the world a better place, we'd like you to think of Jackson Chance.
His parents found a way to honor him by raising money to ease families' financial burdens. But this story is about how money meant to help in that effort went missing - before it mysteriously appeared again years later.
Jackson Chance would have turned 10 last year. His eyes are sparkling pools that once you see, you can't forget.
"Jackson was born 11/11/11 at 11:11pm, so I always say he was as special as his birthday was unique," said his mother, Carrie Meghie.
Meghie's life is shaped by her son's, which was cruelly, too short. Jackson spent all of his life - just shy of 10 months - in neonatal intensive care. That came with expenses you don't think about until they happen.
"We were actually just blown away by the cost of parking and spent thousands of dollars those first couple months to see our son," she said.
And so their grief inspired their giving.
"We were deciding how we wanted to honor Jackson, and we were like, we want to get parents and loved ones to those babies when they need them," said Meghie. "So we decided to start the NICU Transportation program where we provide parking passes to families with babies in the NICU that give them 24/7 access, so every baby can have a loved one with them 24/7."
The Jackson Chance Foundation has helped some 10,000 families at three Chicago area hospitals - thanks to donors.
"The generosity of the supporters has been extremely impressive," Meghie said.
In the last two years, that fundraising has been done through mailers, and checks arrive at their box inside a UPS store. There never seemed to be an issue, until last month.
"Early February, I get a stack of checks - you know, it's great! We're excited!" Meghie said. "And then start looking through then we're like, 'Wait a minute, this check is from December 2020 - oh, maybe someone miswrote the date.'"
It turns out they didn't, and neither did the writers of close to 80 other checks, some dating back to 2020 and 2021.
"$111 from December of 2020 - that's like 14 months ago," Meghie said.
The checks all arrived suddenly on the same day last month, after being who knows where for more than a year in some cases. In total, it was just over $14,000 - and it could have paid for a lot of hospital parking.
"It was just shocking, to say the least," Meghie said.
That UPS Store told us it has similar complaints about extremely late mail showing up via the U.S. Postal Service. But Meghie's search for answers from USPS turned up nothing.
"What happened?" she said. "Where were these checks? re their more checks?"
The foundation has reached about half of the donors in the late stack. Still, one person's since passed away. Others have closed those accounts.
And it's not how Meghie aims to run her charity.
"We value our donors so much, and it was 55 really disappointing for us to think that people were out there thinking that we didn't even acknowledge them sending us their hard-earned money," she said.
And that money was left sitting somewhere instead of easing the burden on parents just trying to be with their babies.
We reached out to the Postal Service about these very late checks, and we were told it delivers mail to the UPS Store - and then it's the UPS Store's responsibility to deliver mail into those boxes.
So where the checks fell through the cracks remains a mystery. The Jackson Chance Foundation is hoping it never happens again.
