COVID testing in Mudgee has this week seen thousands of locals make the trip to AREC to get tested, often waiting in excess of five hours in the drive-through queue. Making that work are the tireless frontline medical workers and volunteers who are putting in huge hours every day all in an effort to get as many locals tested as possible.

Jessmyn Pillegi from Mudgee knew she wanted to help, but wasn't quite sure how. A caterer herself, she posted a call out on her personal Facebook page.

'I want to get some lunch delivered out to the staff at AREC today - would anyone like to chuck some money in to help me?', she wrote. And almost immediately people were getting in touch and donating money to go towards organising food deliveries.

Jessmyn got in touch with Alby and Esthers who were the first business to make a food delivery to AREC staff. That got the ball rolling, and it hasn't stopped since.

"I was like, Okay, I've got excess money. Yeah. Then I just thought, hey, all these people want to put money into it. So let's just continue it for the whole week," Jessmyn said.

Jessmyn has since grown the project to now include more than a dozen local businesses and deliveries to Medical Centre staff and those working at the Mudgee Respiratory Clinic at the Showground.

Thursday it was Ashley's Lunchbox's turn to lend a hand out at AREC.

Owned by Myles, Gail and Pam Ashley, they spoke with the Mudgee Guardian on Wednesday as they were in the midst of preparation. They decided to work with the roughly $10-per-person budget.

Myles and Pam said it was something they were happy to get behind.

"We said, 'what we'll do is we'll match it and make it a really nice lunch', because we think it's fantastic that they're actually getting our town back on its feet...," Pam said.

"We elected to stay open, because here we're all pretty safe. We haven't had any contact with anybody. I mean, businesses is very slow, don't get me wrong. So hopefully... they'll enjoy the lunch.

"I think a good thing that the people of Mudgee should be aware [of] is that the people in Mudgee have been donating to this event, big, little, all sorts of donations.

"And just from our shop alone, you couldn't get a better community of people that actually - when things are going tough - they dig in. It's amazing. We do a massive amount of fundraising for anyone. It just goes to show how how much people really do care."

"It's just such a great community that we live in. Everyone always gets behind - people putting themselves in the front line," Jessmyn said.

"When the rest of us are all cozy in our homes. And we're safe it's really good to see that the community gets out there and supports those doing that huge amount of work that no one really wants to do."

At time of print, the following businesses have taken part:

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