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Daily darshan & aarti
The shrine room is open every morning from 8:00 and every evening from 17:00. Aarti is sung at 8:30 and 19:00, and takes about twenty minutes. You are welcome to sit at the back and simply listen.
Established 2016 · Pekin, Illinois
A quiet place for prayer,
a warm place for neighbours
Shri Khodiyar Mandir Trust is a small, volunteer-run Hindu temple and cultural centre in Tazewell County. We open our doors every day for darshan and aarti, teach language and music to children on weekends, and cook a free vegetarian meal for anyone who needs one. No membership, no fee, no pressure — just come in.
0Years serving the area
0Families in our circle
0Free meals served
0Volunteers on the roster
Who we are
Founded by neighbours, kept running by volunteers
The Trust began in 2016 around a kitchen table in Pekin, when a handful of families realised there was nowhere within an hour's drive to hold a proper Diwali evening. We rented a hall, then a unit, and eventually settled at 1804 Valencia Pl — a modest building we maintain ourselves, with a shrine room, a classroom, a kitchen and a lawn where the children run around while the adults talk too long after aarti.
Robert Short serves as trustee and handles the practical side: the lease, the insurance, the utility bills and the paperwork nobody enjoys. Everything else — the cooking, the cleaning, the teaching, the decorating — happens because someone volunteers on a Tuesday evening. We are not a large organisation and we do not pretend to be one. We are a room, a kitchen, and about forty-six people who keep showing up.
Open to all faiths
No entry fee
Wheelchair accessible
Free parking
What happens here
Six things we do, week in and week out
Nothing on this list requires you to book, register or belong. Walk in, take your shoes off at the door, and someone will point you in the right direction.
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Community kitchen
Every Sunday from 12:30 we cook and serve a free vegetarian lunch — usually dal, rice, a seasonal vegetable and rotli. Around a hundred and thirty plates go out each week to anyone who sits down.
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Language & music school
Saturday mornings, two classrooms: Gujarati and Hindi reading for ages 5–15, plus bhajan singing with harmonium and tabla. Taught by parents, free of charge, no audition and no term fees.
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Festivals
Navratri garba across nine nights, Diwali and Annakut, Holi on the lawn, Janmashtami at midnight, Ganesh Chaturthi and Makar Sankranti. The whole town is invited — and quite a lot of the town comes.
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Ceremonies & sanskars
Namkaran, mundan, satyanarayan katha, griha pravesh, engagement and wedding blessings, and last rites. We help arrange a priest, the hall and the materials. Ask early — weekends fill up months ahead.
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Welfare & support
A small pantry shelf, help filling in forms in English, rides to hospital appointments, and a quiet phone call when someone in the community is unwell or bereaved. Discreet, unpaid and available to anyone local.
Visiting for the first time
You do not need to know anything to walk in
A surprising number of our Sunday visitors have never been inside a mandir before — students from Bradley, neighbours who saw the flag, people who simply wanted somewhere quiet on a difficult day. Here is everything you actually need to know:
- Leave shoes at the entrance. There are racks on the left. Socks are fine.
- Dress comfortably and modestly. Shoulders and knees covered is plenty; there is no dress code beyond that.
- Photography is fine in the hall, but please not during aarti and not of the shrine itself.
- Food offerings are optional. Fruit or sweets are traditional, nothing is expected.
- Stay for prasad. It is offered to everyone at the end and refusing is harder than accepting.
In their words
What people tell us
Comments shared with us by members of our congregation and printed here with their permission.
“We moved to Pekin for work and knew nobody. Within a month our daughter was reading Gujarati on Saturdays and I was chopping onions in the kitchen on Sundays. It made a strange town feel like home.”
“They arranged my father's last rites when I could barely think straight. Two volunteers stayed until eleven at night to help. I will not forget that.”
“I am not Hindu. I came for the Diwali evening out of curiosity and I have been back for every festival since. Nobody has ever once asked me to be anything other than a guest.”
Gallery
A few evenings from the last year
Keep the lights on
Our costs are small, and they are all local
Rent, heating, insurance, ghee, flowers and rice. That is essentially the entire budget. Everyone who works here is a volunteer, including the trustee. If you would like to help, there are three ways — and giving money is only one of them.