Beth Rees is trying to make Springfield a better place, one lasagna at a time. She rents a modest house on the north end with her husband and two daughters, works a full-time job and, like many people, has sometimes struggled to keep the bills paid and put food on the table. For the past five years, she has also made thousands of lasagnas – more than 100,000 individual meals – for people in the Springfield community who might have otherwise gone without one.
Rees works at the Dick Van Dyke Appliance World warehouse during the day and spends one to two evenings every week with her family preparing, on average, more than 100 ready-to-bake pans of lasagna for people around Springfield. What began as a way to help a few families during the early days of the pandemic has now evolved into a year-round community outreach.
“It gave me a purpose to do something, and from that point on we were doing weekly lasagnas for whoever needed them,” Rees told Illinois Times earlier this month. “You message my (Facebook) page; we have people that come to my house and pick them up to deliver them.”
Lasagna is what her grandmother would make for Christmas Eve dinner when Rees was growing up, and the idea came to her as something that would be fillin, but with reasonably affordable ingredients. Rees once tried prepackaged frozen lasagna for her family years ago, right before COVID, and was so displeased she’s never bought one since.
Rees has a methodical way of tracking the lasagnas she’s made and had delivered, often by volunteers from various businesses and community organizations around town. But the process of preparing the lasagnas is a familial one where Beth and her daughters – and in recent years, joined by her husband, Josh Rees – layer marinara sauce between sheets of oven-ready lasagna noodles and Italian cheeses, with hamburger meat and seasonings.
“I eat it every chance I can,” Josh said, lamenting that the others in the Rees family have gotten a bit tired of the dish. He and Beth have been married for only a year and a half. “When we have an event or if we cater and there’s leftover lasagna and they’re like, ‘Here, just take it, we don’t want it,’ then I’ll get a piece of lasagna.”
Josh and Beth Rees prepare lasagnas Dec. 12 for one of the weekly distributions. Feeding Springfield One Lasagna at a Time provided more than 9,500 lasagnas this year to people in need of a meal. PHOTO BY DILPREET RAJU
Unlike many food pantries and social service agencies, Rees doesn’t require identification, proof of poverty or anything other than basic information so she knows how big of a pan to fix and deliver.
“I don’t ask you your income; I don’t ask you anything except name, address and how many are in your family, and that’s how I keep track of everything,” Rees said. “I don’t cook a lot of them – unless you don’t have an oven, then I’ll cook it – they’re handed to you with heating instructions and that’s how you go.”
In October and November, her Facebook page, Feeding Springfield One Lasagna at a Time, was listed on online flyers aggregating food resources for Springfield residents with dwindling SNAP benefits and government workers who were without paychecks. The resulting surge in requests from people in need ultimately forced Rees to learn when and where food distributions were happening throughout town so she could refer people to additional help.
“My phone would go off from 2 a.m. until midnight. It was nonstop, and we had people that didn’t know if they were going to get their next paycheck because of the shutdown. A lot of people were so worried about (SNAP benefits),” Rees said. “People just didn’t know how they were going to eat. It was literally, ‘I can give you one lasagna, but here, let’s gather up some more resources.’”
She also puts together community events around major holidays as a way for children and families to get together. This year, for the first time, Rees surrendered control of the kitchen for her second annual Breakfast with the Big Guy holiday party, which she hosted Dec. 20 at Kumler United Methodist Church, 600 N. Fifth St.
“Normally, I do it,” she said. “I don’t relinquish control very well, but I’m very excited about this one.”
Employees from the Wabash IHOP used the same kitchen in the basement of Kumler that Rees typically uses for preparing her lasagnas to make a free breakfast, complete with pancakes, sausage and eggs, for dozens of families. Many were the same families that have received lasagnas from Beth. In addition to breakfast, there were kids’ activities and photo ops with Santa and the Grinch, and each child got to select a toy to take home.
For more than five years now, Rees has been using Kumler’s kitchen for her weekly ritual of making lasagnas.
“They were the only ones during COVID that would open up their kitchen,” she said. “I can’t make 100 lasagnas in this itty-bitty kitchen of mine,” she said of her small house on Peoria Road. “They opened it up not knowing me, not knowing anything about me.”
Sharon Brown, executive director of Kumler Outreach Ministries, said the church’s trustees agreed to open the space to Rees.
“Our building is an asset for us and so if we can share that to help somebody else reach out to the community, we’re all for that,” Brown said. “We’ve typically had volunteers from the church that have helped at (Beth’s) events so we’ve also been involved that way. We want to do as much as we can for the community, and this is a way we can pool resources,” Brown said.
Rees made 67 lasagnas the first year, and initially didn’t plan for it to become an ongoing project. But even after the pandemic, the need remained constant, and in 2021 she distributed 3,677 lasagnas. Rees wrapped up this year with a new record – 9,585 lasagnas. As word spread about the “lasagna lady” and more people reached out for help, she realized she would need to enlist some assistance from community members.
Beth Rees with daughters Stratus and Sable at an April 12 community event that provided free Easter baskets and kids’ activities. PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK
Pease’s at BUNN Gourmet has been a partner since the beginning, providing 100% black Angus beef from the Bunn farm. Many other businesses have donated ingredients for lasagnas or merchandise and gift cards that Beth uses for weekly drawings, with proceeds going to support her outreach efforts.
Two years ago, Rees reached out to The Stadium Smokehouse Bar and Grill, 2300 N. Peoria Road, to see if the business would donate some ingredients for the lasagnas. She ended up forming a partnership with co-owner Jade Hart, who was happy to help by donating cheese and sauce while buying other supplies.
Hart also praised Beth for her holiday events, which she said provides kids with a fun, new alternative to Springfield’s typical offerings for children.
“I don’t know how she does it, she organizes all these people,” Hart said. “Springfield doesn’t have a lot of things to do with kids – it’s nice at the holidays that there’s something extra for people to take their kids to.”
Beth and Josh’s generosity has spread to those close to them, said Ryan Alexander, owner of Alexander Custom Improvements, who has helped connect the couple to veterans in need of meals.
“I like to help out veterans,” Alexander said. “My wife lost her brother in the military. We just try to give back wherever we can; veterans just seem to be a big thing because there’s a lack of help for them.”
This past Veterans Day, Beth mobilized her team of community volunteers to provide lasagna meals to 200 veterans and their families, along with care packages of candy. For Valentine’s Day, she gave out 312 lasagnas and 643 care packages to veterans and seniors, asking people in the community to commit to $5-$10 to sponsor an individual or $50 to sponsor an entire floor of a high-rise apartment building. In addition to helping those struggling with food insecurity, Rees said it’s important to her to make sure those who live alone know the community cares for them.
She is also motivated to help others because she knows what it feels like to worry about how you are going to provide for your family. Rees said she has been in a position of food insecurity for herself and her two daughters.
Children at the Dec. 20 event were allowed to visit Santa’s Workshop (no adults allowed) and select a toy to take home. PHOTO BY STEVE HINRICHS
“There’s been a time when I didn’t know how I was going to feed them,” Rees said. But regardless of her own challenges, “There’s always people that are less fortunate.”
Beth and Josh have both previously struggled with managing their substance use, but together are on a streak of sobriety since their marriage that they say is propelled by helping others.
“I just want to give back to people,” Beth said. “I’m not who I was five years ago. Definitely not who I was 10 years ago. Even with my sobriety now, I’m not who I was a year and a half ago, and I wanted my kids more than anything to see that. I wanted to be somebody that my kids were super proud of.”
Employees from the Wabash IHOP served a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage to attendees at the Breakfast with the Big Guy. PHOTO BY STEVE HINRICHS
Her daughters Sable, 20, and Stratus, 22 – who she lovingly calls “Bit and Brat, I can’t remember the last time I used their real names” – give back to the community in their own way. The sisters have a nonprofit called BB Boutique, housed at Kumler, which provides free prom dresses and jewelry to high schoolers who are attending school dances.
Beth and Josh agree that community volunteers have been a vital piece of their operation. In addition to helping deliver hundreds of lasagnas each month, people from various businesses and community organizations often refer people who might not have otherwise known that Beth has been providing free lasagnas for years. Sometimes they ask Beth if she can provide a lasagna or two for an event, which she often obliges.
Whitney Devine, program manager for the Sangamon County Recovery Oriented Systems of Care Council, or ROSC, said she reached out to Beth’s Facebook page when scheduling a recovery-focused event but is also a resource for Beth with her many events. ROSCs are collaborations of organizations that support people going through recovery.
“She’s helped us out (with providing food) at our events in the past. We try to show you can still have fun, even without any substances or alcohol involved,” Devine said. “We just try to help her with her events as well… She’s the type of person, if there’s a need, she just she shows up. Sometimes I feel like she has superpowers because the way she pulls stuff off and getting the community together for these things, it’s just amazing work that she does.”
Devine had plenty of praise for Beth’s signature dish: “I’m a huge fan, and I’ve had many, many lasagnas” and for all of Beth and Josh’s efforts.
“They both have huge hearts, and we need more people like them in the community that have a passion for it. They always need more help – so if there are people out there that are interested in helping volunteer at events, helping deliver lasagnas – it takes a village, and I know she would love to have more people’s help and support,” Devine said.
This article appears in December 25-31, 2025.
