Tiny Illinois Town’s Efforts to Save Grocery Store Has Gone Viral

Never underestimate a small town's ability to rise up and do something special. That is the story for one tiny Illinois town that was about to lose its only grocery store until citizens decided to do something about it. What they've done has now gone viral and become national news.

Get our free mobile app

I first saw this story shared on the Illinois sub-Reddit.

Wonderful job by NBC News who just shared the story of Royal Super Mart in Sheffield, Illinois. In the latest census, Sheffield was only home to 821 residents. It only took one to decide to start and effort to make sure their grocery store doesn't shut down.

As the story goes, little ole Royal Super Mart was opened by an Illinois family in 1940. Cliff Winger began the life of the store back then and eventually passed it onto his son back in the 1980's. His son is now ready to retire which left the small Illinois place in jeopardy of losing Royal Super Mart.

Elizabeth Pratt to the rescue. They reported that Elizabeth is a nurse who's family calls Sheffield home and she led a crusade to raise money to save Royal Super Mart. As of this writing, over a half million dollars has been raised by local citizens and good-hearted corporations.

This tiny town can feed itself.

This is one story in Illinois that fortunately has a happy ending for all the 821 citizens that call it home still.