(upbeat rock music) - Welcome to "A Shot of AG."

My name is Rob Sharkey.

I'm a farmer from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

Rural America.

It's like apple pie with a slice of Velveeta cheese on it, it's perfect.

You got the old cafe where all the farmers are at the liars table, you've got the coffee shop, you got the grocery store.

It brings rural people together.

Or does it anymore?

Have things changed?

Well, today we're gonna talk with Elizabeth Pratt from Sheffield.

How you doing?

- I'm good.

- Okay, first of all, for people maybe in Peoria who don't know where Sheffield is, where is it?

- About an hour north of Peoria.

- Mm-hmm.

Psycho Silo.

- It's there.

- That's probably where most people, they probably know that more than Sheffield, don't they?

- I suppose it depends on which circles you're in, (chuckling) but yeah.

- If you have a motorcycle.

Yeah.

- Yeah, but everybody from the area goes.

- Yeah.

- A little bit.

- And then you have Reds Bar.

- Yes, excellent.

- And restaurant, I guess, too.

- Yes.

- I shouldn't cut it short.

It's a unique town.

Do you know how big it is?

- 850.

- That's it, huh?

- Mm-hmm.

- That's almost double the size of Bradford, by the way.

(Elizabeth chuckling) Yeah.

You guys, for 850, you guys have a lotta things going on in that town.

I mean, it's on six, it's not on an interstate, but you have a lot to do with that, and we will get into that.

First of all, are you from Sheffield originally?

- I grew up in Kewanee.

- [Rob] Oh.

- About 20 miles away.

Metropolis.

- Oh, boy.

Okay.

Kewanee.

Lotta things to say about Kewanee, but we probably just better move on.

I'm glad you made it out.

- I was a Boilermaker.

- Oh, you were?

Okay.

- I was a Boilermaker.

- A Boilermaker, not a goose?

- Correct.

- Yeah.

Did you grow up on a farm?

- I did, I grew up on a dairy farm.

- [Rob] Milking cows?

- I didn't personally have to do that, but my dad did.

(Rob chuckling) Twice a day.

And I have twin sisters who are just 15 months younger than I am.

- Gotcha.

- So it was always a play date on the farm.

- (chuckling) Nice.

Play date with child labor.

You gotta love it.

- Yeah.

- Did you go off to school?

- After?

- [Rob] Like college?

Yeah.

- Yes.

I went and got a nursing degree at Illinois Wesleyan.

(bell dinging) After that, I went and got some more degrees.

(chuckling) - [Rob] Really?

- From.

- [Rob] Are you smart?

- I hope so.

I like to think so.

- Well, I mean, you have to be, right, to get a degree?

They just don't give those away, like, - Right.

- Candy.

What were the other.

- I love school.

(chuckling) - Do you really?

- I do.

- Were you a good student?

- Yeah.

- Oh, man.

Book smart?

- I love to learn new things, yeah.

- What were the other degrees you got?

- A Masters in Public Health and Healthcare Administration.

- Okay, I don't even know what that means.

It sounds impressive.

- Mm-hmm.

- So what did you wanna do?

- I wanted to take care of people, and be a nurse, and be at the bedside.

And then once I was, I just kind of kept feeling like, there's gotta be a way to prevent this person from being here.

And so over the course of a few years, I decided to go back for the public health degree for that reason, and it just kept feeling like there's gotta be more root cause work that can be done here, and so then I did the Social Innovation Design Certificate after that.

- Okay, that, I don't know what that is, Social Innovation Design Certificate.

Can you explain that?

- Yeah.

So that's just a short program that kind of taught me how to engage the community in finding the solutions to the so-called problems.

So it's very much like a person-centered approach, where a lot of times people sitting in another room are deciding what the best solution is to an issue.

This really taught me how to engage and assume that the people with the issue have the solution to the problem if we're listening.

- Okay.

Help me explain.

So you're sitting beside people.

Are you talking like, older people, you're talking like, sick people?

- Everybody.

So my project in that class ended up being finding healthy, nutritious dietary choices.

And so I interviewed kind of a spectrum of people, and the grocery store kind of came out of that project a little bit because it felt like there was a different solution that nobody was listening to, and we could help with that in a very personal way in a small town that you can't do in a larger community.

- Before we get to the grocery store, which I find fascinating, let's talk about Cornerstone.

- Okay.

- First of all, what is it?

- Cornerstone is a health resource center in Sheffield.

Intentionally changing programs.

So for instance, we have a 24/7 gym, we have a counselor on-site one day a week, support groups, fitness classes, and then different awareness and education around physical, mental, and spiritual health.

- Is the counselor, it's like mental health?

- Correct.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- Which, so I don't mean to interrupt, but I mean, you're talking in a small town, that's a resource that I don't even, I can't name another small town that has one.

- Right.

We'd have to travel 45 minutes typically for something like that.

- So did you start Cornerstone?

- My husband and I did.

- Okay.

And your husband's a doctor?

- Correct.

- How'd you two meet?

- I was in high school and he was in college, and we met through his stepsister, who I went to high school with.

- Okay.

It's kind of a boring story.

- It gets better.

(Rob and Elizabeth laughing) We dated for five years, he went off to, I followed him to Illinois Wesleyan, then he left and went off to the Caribbean for medical school.

- [Rob] That's rude.

- Yeah, I thought so, too.

And so we stayed together and he came back and he did residency just over in Davenport.

- Okay.

How long you been married?

- 17 years.

- 17 years.

And three kids, yeah?

- Three kids.

- Okay.

So you guys, did you just, did you feel a need to start this, or tell me the thought process behind, 'cause this couldn't have been easy.

- It kinda came out of like my nursing experience and his experience in the primary care office.

The primary care doctors, kinda the jack of all trades and the filter for all the specialists, and so how do we keep people from, how do we put ourselves outta business, basically?

- Yeah, because again, when you're sitting with these people, you're trying to get to, how did they get there?

I mean, how do they get sick, or?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Some of it you can't control.

Some of it, if we just approach our lifestyles years ahead of time, we're able to keep them from being in his office.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- He's got plenty of business, so we're.

(chuckling) - I like those.

- We can prevent it.

- The pork sausage patties.

- Okay.

- So you're talking about a guy like me, it's like, all right, he shouldn't be eating 14 of those a day.

- Maybe.

- Maybe two.

- Just take it back just a couple.

- Okay.

(laughing) (Elizabeth chuckling) Plus getting active.

- Several times.

(chuckling) - Which I mean, yeah, you can go for a walk and that, but sometimes in a small town, there's very limited options to stay active.

- Yeah, and for me, it's as much about the social connection.

Probably more about the social connection than anything.

How can we bring together people in the community informally?

So people start to form groups in the gym based on just like, the time they were working out.

Got the 8:00, we've got the lunchtime people.

They didn't know each other before, but now they know each other enough to connect to the resources that they need.

It's kind of just a really interesting thing in, I think it's unique to a small town.

- I think it really is, because you know, a small town, when you go to the post office, you're like, oh, now I know you because we were, you spotted me when I was doing my bench press stuff.

Like that.

(chuckling) - Sure.

The muscles, I recognize the muscles.

- Is that what most people are doing, or like, working out at this place?

- Yeah, we have like, 250 gym members, which is pretty good.

- [Rob] Wow.

You said there's 800 in a town.

- Yeah, so we draw from like, a 10 mile radius.

- Okay.

- It's cheap, it's $15 a month.

- Yeah, that's not bad at all.

- And it's 24/7 access, so some people do come from further away.

And then some people also come from further away for things like the counselor, the support groups for anonymity.

But we change things all the time.

Make it purposely a little bit confusing so that people don't know why your car's in the parking lot.

- Ah.

Now you're, okay, now you're talking small town stuff, right, because that's my first thought, too.

If the counselor's gonna be there at every Wednesday at 2:00 and my car's in the parking lot, I'm gonna feel like people are thinking, oh, well he has to go get counseling, which there's no shame in, but in a small town, there is that mindset that, okay, that might be a weakness.

- Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and hopefully, then over time the stigma goes away as people bump into each other and just kinda recognize that we're all work in progress.

- Yeah.

So this Cornerstone, is it connected to the grocery store?

- So Cornerstone owns the grocery store.

- Okay.

And you own Cornerstone?

- It's a nonprofit.

- Okay.

- So I don't technically own it.

- Gotcha.

But you're probably running both?

- I'm, yes, I'm a manager at the grocery store.

(Rob chuckling) Who has more grocery experience than I do, 'cause I have zero.

And Cornerstone, our board, and myself, and our staff kind of oversees how the mission flows through the grocery store.

- Mm-hmm.

The Royal Super Mart.

- Mm-hmm.

- Who came up with that name?

- It was Royal Super Mart for 82 years before we bought it.

- Didn't think about changing things up, huh?

(Elizabeth and Rob chuckling) - We really wanted to honor that foundation, and there was a real tie to the family, the Winger family, who had owned and operated it for that long, and so we wanted that transition to be very honoring to the family.

Everything in the store is different, but somehow we can still honor the past and all of the foundation they laid and move forward with the future, and that's kind of the story on this guy.

- What is this?

Because this is what I picture when I think of like, an old groceries.

I picture the kid marking the can of peaches with the sticker gun, you know what I'm saying?

- So those still exist.

- Do they really?

- Yeah.

- What's this?

Do you use this?

- That is a really old check writer.

- Oh, it's for checks.

- Yep.

- I should have asked if I could play with this, but.

- I have no idea how to use it, but we found it in an office as we were renovating, and so.

- Well, that's a.

You could just play with this thing all day, couldn't you?

- Yeah.

- You could write a check.

- Time-consuming.

- Looks up for like, no.

Yeah.

Why won't it go $99,000?

- It probably doesn't write checks big enough anymore.

(chuckling) - That's, (chuckling), where do I put my name on this damn thing?

- (laughing) Yeah.

- That's, I mean, this is kind of a throwback.

It's kind of a reminder of what it used to be.

- And so that's kind why we kept the, we went with like a- - [Rob] It's heavy.

(machine thudding) - It's super heavy.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- How heavy do you think that is?

20 pounds?

- Million pounds, I don't know.

(Elizabeth laughing) It's very heavy.

- I didn't realize there was gonna be a.

- It's just like, unusually.

- Yeah, this back when, either made of cast iron and, I don't know, lead.

There's some asbestos in this key and all that.

You gotta love this stuff.

- Yep.

- And this is your Royal Mart cup?

- Correct.

So we kinda kept the retro, modern retro branding.

- It's actually hip, right?

- Yeah, I think so.

- So is it, if I go into the Royal Mart and I want milk, I want ground beef, and I want olives stuffed with blue cheese, can I get all that?

- You can.

- You have all, I mean, so you- - We have olives stuffed with blue cheese, even those, - You got a bunch of vodka drinkers.

(chuckling) - (chuckling) We have no alcohol because of the Cornerstone oversight, but we do, we have a pretty good variety, I think, for a store our size.

We've gotten really good feedback on that.

- I remember when Bradford tried a grocery store and it was a struggle, right, because you drive 30, 40 minutes, you're at a Super Walmart where you literally can get everything.

- Yeah.

- How are you guys finding it?

- Just the amount of foot traffic is hard with that population.

We kind of need to bring people from a 10 mile radius.

- Yeah.

- Outside of that, it's easier for people to go to the big box stores, which I won't name, but.

- I think I already did, Walmart.

- (chuckling) I didn't say that.

And I didn't say anything poor about them, but.

- That's an awful place to go.

It really is.

You feel bad about humanity after you go to Walmart.

Especially Kewanee Walmart.

(Rob and Elizabeth chuckling) - I grew up there.

- I know.

Send all your emails to Elizabeth Pratt.

- In my pajama pants.

Yeah.

(Rob laughing) It's a different experience, I will say that.

Hopefully we give something different and more social, and I think something that we can give is time As a grocery store.

Don't have to travel, walk across a huge parking lot, walk through a huge store, you know.

It's like a half day adventure to go get groceries, and hopefully, - Yeah, then you gotta check yourself out.

I remember- - You can give the gift of time, yeah.

- My mom going to the Bradford grocery store, and it's like you knew everybody.

"Hey, Joe" or whoever it was, and people you'd run into, you just, it was a sense of community.

- It really is.

- Is that, it seems like that would be one of the assets that your grocery store would have compared to the big box stuff.

- Yes.

So, sometimes I can tell who's in the store based on the laughter I hear.

And it's, you know, and it's one of the few places, you know, there's the library, a couple other places, but where all generations in town can kind of bump into each other.

We have tiny carts, and the kids love those.

- Yeah.

(chuckling) - And then it helps, you know, the 90-somethings be able to be independent and still get their groceries, so.

It's been very heartwarming.

- You say relationships make the world go around.

Explain what you mean.

- I just am a huge proponent of having a group of really close family and friends, and all the, it's not selfish, but it serves a lot of purposes, but also of having people that you know just a little bit.

And that's okay, you don't have to know everyone well, but even the people you know just a little bit connect you to everything that you need.

And you find that in a small town.

You know this person, it's kind of a crumb trail following situation, but if you know this much about your neighbor in a small town, you can sometimes get connected to a job, or a ride somewhere, or things like that.

- Do you think that is connected to health at all?

- Oh, yes.

- Yeah?

- Social health is huge.

A huge part of health.

- It does seem like loneliness, which is easy to do, probably everywhere, but I only know small rural areas, it's easy to do, that just seems like if something's going wrong that day, it just makes it all the worse.

- Mm-hmm.

- Yeah.

And here you are, you're trying to get everybody together.

- I'm trying.

- Are you just, just like a legit good person, or why do you do such a nice stuff?

- I don't know.

Ask my parents.

(laughing) I don't know.

And my husband's a very good influence in that way.

(chuckling) - I ask it kind of joking, but I seriously wanna know.

I mean, why do you do this?

This has to be a ton of time, has to be a ton of headaches, we all know that.

Why do you do it?

- It's just really rewarding to have things be meaningful.

You know, you can go to work, show up.

You can look at your phone all day.

But for me just to, if there's a social component of it, to me it becomes much more meaningful.

And it's addictive that way.

- Is it?

- It is.

- A lot of people, I think, focus on small ideas, small solutions, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- You seem like you're just the opposite.

I mean, you're taking on big projects here in a very small town.

Do you think that's part of the key to your success?

- Yeah.

Well, ask me in like 10 years.

(chuckling) - [Rob] Yeah.

- We'll see if we call it a success or not.

- You're not fantastic at taking compliments, are you?

- I'm terrible at taking compliments.

(Rob and Elizabeth laughing) Really bad.

I'm working on it.

- Are you?

- Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I am.

- 'Cause if I lived in Sheffield, I mean, I would look at you and your family as somebody that is giving up a lot of time, effort, and work for the greater good of the community.

You just, there is a ton of that goes on, but it's not the norm, I would say.

- It's not the default.

It's much easier to not.

But I don't know, what's the point then?

I mean, I like to, I recognize, I'm like an introverted extrovert, so I love the social part, I get really involved, I realize that I've taken in too much, (chuckling) and I have to retreat for quiet time.

I think a lot of people who do this sort of thing are probably like that, but.

You have to have a balance, and I can appreciate that balance, and I can appreciate that people like to do self-checkout and shop by themselves.

We have an option for that too, so.

- You can self-checkout at the Super Royal Mart?

- We have an after hours membership.

- [Rob] Really?

- So you can shop from 5:00 AM to 11:00 PM, 365 days a year.

- [Rob] And just go in there and?

- Check yourself out.

- Is it the honor system?

- We have a lot of cameras.

(Rob laughing) I really believe in humanity, but I'm also a realist.

- Yeah, that has got to hurt too, when you put so much love and effort into projects like this, and I don't know if it's ever happened, but you have people that take advantage of it.

Do you just have to ignore that?

- Sure.

It happens very little.

It really does.

It's taken me about 10 years to be able to set good boundaries in that way and kind of recognize that, but.

- The extrovert introvert thing is not unusual for people that take on big projects like this.

I find it that way, too.

Eventually, you're done talking with people.

- Yeah, at least for a little bit.

(chuckling) - But not yet.

- You don't seem to be.

(chuckling) - No.

It was a joke, but.

- It's a lot.

- Apparently, it didn't go over too well.

- That's a lot.

- Didn't even get the cameraman to laugh at that one.

(cards tapping) What advice would you have for people that want to help their small towns?

- Oh, boy.

You should have prepped me with this one.

- I should have, but that's what happens when a joke doesn't go over.

(Elizabeth laughing) - I think that you have to be willing to take big risks or it doesn't pay off.

I'm hoping this all pays off.

Cornerstone's been open for nine years.

The grocery store, I don't know where this will go, but it can't be like everything else in a small town.

You can't do things the same way because you don't have the same foot traffic, so if you're gonna do something that's worth doing, I guess you have to just start and take big risks.

- I doubt you will ever see the payoffs.

I mean, I'm sure people will come up to you and tell you what it it means to them, but for everyone that doesn't, there's how many that actually feel that way too?

It's kind of one of those things, it's thankless, a thankless job, but it really does take people with a big heart to actually, I can't imagine the headaches you have to put up with on stuff like this.

Like, even the grocery store.

Out of all the people that come to that grocery store, which is the person that you like the least?

- Oh, boy.

- Yeah.

Somebody came to mind.

- No, actually nobody did.

(chuckling) Actually.

I was going top down.

- [Rob] Oh, the best.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Do you have a- - There are a couple elderly ladies who I just really love.

- Yeah?

Do you have like, a liars table in there for the old farmers to sit and?

- We have a table and two chairs at the front.

- Yeah?

- We don't provide the coffee though, because we have a coffee shop across the street.

- Even if it was free coffee, they'd still complain it was too expensive.

And they would leave a nickel for the waitress and they would let everybody know that they were tipping.

- Can I tell you a joke that might not go over that well in this community?

- I already did.

(chuckling) - (chuckling) What do you call a bunch of farmers in a basement?

(Rob laughing) Have you heard this one?

- No.

- A whine cellar.

(Rob laughing) - That's not funny.

(cards tapping) My joke, you guys didn't even do anything.

- They might not love it.

- Now it's all, we're making fun of farmers, that's hilarious.

It's true.

- You can't do it if you live in a big city.

- No.

We can make fun of ourselves, yeah.

But that is kind of a mentality.

And it's all done, like, I mean, you get, and farm wives are the same way, you all get together and you complain or whatever, but it's funny, it's hard to explain, it's all done with love.

- Oh, yeah.

- And I don't think you've, I think you gotta be there for that, yeah.

Well, I tell you what, if people wanna find out more about this stuff or they wanna contact you, where do they go?

- Royalsupermart.com.

I have no idea how we were able to get that domain.

- [Rob] Yeah, no kidding.

- Yep.

Royalsupermart.com, or ccwell.org is Cornerstone.

- [Rob] Cornerstone, ccwell.org.

- Yeah, and the grocery store links through that website too, but.

- Gotcha.

Does the grocery store take credit cards?

- Oh, yeah.

About- - You brought this thing, so I don't know.

- (chuckling) About 70% of our transactions are credit cards.

- Yeah.

- Which is okay.

It makes it more convenient.

The fees are hard, yeah.

- Yeah, 'cause I mean, you can't, you need that money.

- But that's, maybe that's another part of doing things in a small town is like, you just, you have to keep up with technology and those sorts of trends.

- Sounds like a problem.

I guess you need to figure it out.

(chuckling) I tell you what, I give you a hard time, but you meet a person like you that has a giant heart, and you have just a desire to make the world around you a better place, not for yourself, but for others, it's a rarity, and it is a rarity to actually see that put into play.

And a lot of people talk a big game, here you guys are doing it.

And I tell you what, it's been an absolute pleasure to get to know you.

Elizabeth Pratt from Sheffield, Illinois.

- Thank you.

- Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

- Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.

(upbeat rock music)