When Randy Pherigo, a storekeeper at the Jacksonville Operating Center for Ameren Illinois, and his wife, Abby, decided to return home to Beardstown, Illinois, to raise their family, they made a commitment to get more involved in the community. It didn’t take them long to make a difference.
As a member of the Beardstown Community Unified School District 15 school board, Abby Pherigo was concerned about students who couldn’t rely on school lunches during the COVID-19 closures. Working with her friend, schoolteacher Sarah Engelbrecht, the two women set up an on-campus food pantry at the local high school, but they knew they wanted to do even more.
So, they collaborated with Randy Pherigo and Sarah’s husband, Joe Engelbrecht, and the first food pantry in the river town of 5,800 residents was born.
The Engelbrechts found a location for the pantry on East Second Street in downtown Beardstown, just a few blocks from the Illinois River. It took most of 2022, but Randy Pherigo and Joe Engelbrecht took on the job of transforming the interior of the building and acquiring coolers, shelves and other furnishings.
The Beardstown Food Pantry, which opened in early January this year, is set up like a grocery store, so families can select the types and amounts of food that are right for them.
“We saw a need in our community,” said Randy Pherigo. “Nearly 75% of the population in Beardstown lives below the poverty line. We just want to make sure people have food to eat.”
The first Sunday the Beardstown Food Pantry opened, 60 families filled baskets. The following Sunday, the number of families served doubled to 120. The food pantry also accommodates Spanishand French-speaking community members.
“When we give people this food, it can maybe help them focus on something else,” Pherigo said. “Maybe they will be able to get out of a situation—to get an apartment or house because we are starting to give them a hand up.”
The food pantry isn’t the Pherigos’ first volunteer initiative. They also raised more than $100,000 over seven years by organizing poker runs, where participants on motorcycles or all-terrain vehicles donate money and ride to checkpoints to draw cards; whoever has the best poker hand at the end of the ride wins the game. Proceeds have supported local families’ cancer battles, a veterans memorial wall, the Beardstown school athletic program and the Cass County Food Pantry.
“We don’t want anything in return. We just want to see people eat,” said Pherigo. “Just to see somebody come in and see all this and have a big smile on their face—it’s nothing short of amazing.”