In her job, she works with the nonprofit Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation as a board liaison.

The development corporation seeks to improve economic conditions throughout Montgomery County.

“When I was younger, I thought I wanted to be a teacher. It all started with an internship with the Watershed Nature Center out of Edwardsville.”

From there, she developed a new passion.

“My love for community and economic development, actually, came from watching all of my friends move away,” Belusko said. She and her husband, Matt, moved to Dieterich in 2006, staying for four years before moving to Effingham.

Belusko worked for the Effingham County Community Foundation from March 2008 to January 2015.

“We were a very small staff. I just started absorbing everything I could.”

About a year and a half after Belusko began working at the foundation, its accountant moved out of state. Matt is the agriculture teacher at Ramsey High School.

“With two kids, and they’re kind of spaced apart, I was really worried about how I was going to manage my schedule, and I wanted to make sure that the community foundation didn’t suffer because of me,” Belusko said.

She eventually accepted a position in the loan department at Litchfield National Bank, working there for one day shy of 11 months before joining the U of I Extension office in Montgomery County.

“My role through Extension allows me to work with both private and public partnerships,” Belusko said. “Since inception, we have received over $700,000 in grants for our local communities, and that’s gone to help with anything from police cars and emergency sirens to even helping revive a community building.”

One of the top priorities for the corporation is getting accessible internet to everyone in the community, plus strengthening its speed and reliability, Belusko said.

“We are working on finding a partner to come in and provide us with a strong fiber backbone throughout the county that will allow us to continue to grow,” she said.