Kathy Rauh took a vacation to San Francisco and was appalled by the poverty and homelessness. Seeing the lines of supplicants for food and shelter was gut-wrenching.

After returning home to Peru, she asked her then-pastor, “What could she do?”

The Very Rev. Paul Carlson told Rauh that if she wanted to feed the hungry, then there’s no place like home to start. Carlson was the pastor at St. Patrick Catholic Church in La Salle, where Rauh is an active member, and people in need regularly knocked on the church’s door seeking food donations.

“And he said, ‘Why don’t we start a food pantry?’” Rauh recalled. “And that’s how it actually got started.”

That was in 2017. Carlson, now pastor of the churches in Oglesby and Utica, said the project was started “with the desire to not turn people away from the church door without something in their hands.”

“Kathy’s work is much more than distributing canned goods,” Carlson said. “She takes care to gather food and home needs that people actually need when going through a rough time. She is careful with everything. From the type of bag used to the seasonal spiritual reading that sometimes accompanies the bags.”

Initially, it was a two-person operation. Rauh and her husband, Mike, appealed to parishioners for nonperishable food and then collected it once a month. They raised enough to fill about eight grocery bags to be given to the needy.

But as word circulated, donations grew – and so did the demand. Today, Rauh and a small band of volunteers will hand out 20 bags or more a week. In some cases, there are itinerant homeless people, but sometimes fixed-income seniors are grappling with soaring inflation.

“Some people worked their whole life and now they can’t get enough food on the table because they just get Social Security,” Rauh said. “We have a lot of people that are hungry, that have a Social Security check only, and that’s not making it nowadays at all.”

“We just want to try and help people who need a little something extra.”

Rauh is a native of Toledo, Ohio, who was transferred to Peru to temporarily manage the former Montgomery Ward store. Little did she know she’d one day return for good. Her next stop was in upstate New York, where she met and married Mike in 1987. Mike is a DePue native, and they settled permanently in the Illinois Valley in 2009.

Her managerial skills came in handy as she built the food pantry up from nothing. She converted a large closet in the parish office into a storeroom for food donations and gradually drew volunteers who help with the sorting, bagging and record-keeping. Recipients are limited to one donation a month and must furnish a photo ID.

Nancy Maciejewski of La Salle went from donating food items to assisting Rauh with the inventory and distribution.

“I thought it was wonderful,” Maciejewski said. “I just see such need when people come and the line is out the door. It’s fulfilling, but yet it’s sad at times.”

Rauh and St. Patrick’s deliver just a fraction of the food provided by the regional food pantries and lack the refrigeration needed to store and distribute milk, meat and frozen foods.

Nevertheless, Rauh’s operation helps fill in a gap in food access. Families occasionally run into a shortfall between the distribution days held by regional food pantries. A sack of nonperishables from St. Patrick’s can feed the needy for a critical week or so before the next regional food distribution.

Rauh’s generosity inspired others in her faith community to give. The Ladies Sodality provides $5 gift cards for the purchase of fresh meat or milk and, once a month, donates “Blessing Bags” containing nonfood items such as shampoo and deodorant.

Once a month, the Peoria Diocese sends a van with supplemental needs such as paper products, including toilet paper and diapers, for struggling families.