A way for the community to look to each other to grow, share and maybe one day export their locally-produced product, wares and talents all while embedding a sense of purpose and belonging.

"Be that delicious Murra jams, relish, bush food, breads, beer, cheeses, coffee. Opportunities for everyone across the food chain, employment, commercial kitchens, agri-tourism, pop-up restaurants. Murrurundi will be the food hub," Amanda said.

"For me, everything comes back to food, it sustains us as people, and instead of clocking up food miles, we see a food future that sustains Murrurundi and the surrounds, creating more certainly, security and a more vibrant community."

The Murrurundi Collective welcomes food, produce, plants and wares from a 50-kilometre aerial radius of Murrurundi including the Upper Hunter Shire. The idea is to reduce the distance food travels and build a network of suppliers to support the community they live in.

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Currently based out of an old petrol station in the town's Mayne Street, even the location of The Murrurundi Collective is a nod to up-cycling the old to make something vibrant and inclusive.

In the year since it opened, The Murrurundi Collective has established monthly farmers' markets and welcomed around 18 local stall holders into the fold to help build "a purpose-driven, socially-focused sustainable, profit-creating business for the community and the planet".

The next market will be held this Saturday, December 10 for a special twilight farmers market from 5pm, at the store in Mayne Street, as part of the Murrurundi Twilight Christmas shopping trail showcasing what Murrurundi has to offer.

Following a few turbulent years of uncertainty with drought and bushfires, then the COVID-19 pandemic, Amanda's journey to establishing The Murrurundi Collective in 2021 was as colourful as the produce that makes this social enterprise so special.

It has been a journey of loss, of learning to let go and of exploring unfamiliar roads toward new ventures that make the "heart sing", says Amanda.

It started with a regenerative agriculture workshop in Murrurundi in 2018 with Glen Chapman of Southern Blue Regenerative Agriculture.

At the time Amanda was working temporarily as the Drought Coordinator for the Upper Hunter Shire Council. Daily she was confronted with stories of despair from her community, which the media had dubbed the "town with no water".

"I witnessed firsthand what true community spirit looked like, but I was also asking myself daily what is this behaviour we exhibit in drought? I was like, we did not see it coming and once it arrived, we had no choice but to jump in and fix it?

"I would have long arduous conversation with my husband about this, he was coming from a place of generationally-traditional farming practices in my opinion. But to be honest what did I know about farming, soil management, pesticide use ... only what I had read in the media, so how was I ever going to convince him to look at and adopt a new way of farming?"

Amanda was eager to educate herself so she could engage in conversations with her husband on how they could both adapt their small parcel of land to create a new sustainable farming venture.

"I was keen to attend and see if I could pick up some lingo to try and impress my husband with my newfound education in regen agriculture," Amanda said.

"As the workshop progressed, I had all these questions and thoughts popping into my head about the multitude of issues relating to farming, food production, our community's sustainability my mind was racing.

"I just could not get to Glen quick enough after the presentation to blurt out all my questions, he patiently listened to my verbal download and responded with one line, "so you have read the book?".

The book Chapman referred to was "The Town That Food Saved" by Ben Hewitt originally published in 2009.

Without realising it, the ideas Amanda was imagining were in fact being put into practice by the small town of Hardwick, Vermont in the US when uncertainty struck during the global financial crisis.

The hardscrabble farming community of 3,000 residents, had jump-started its economy and redefined its self-image through a local, self-sustaining food system unlike anything else in America, according to the book.

The business model helped a number of food-based businesses survive and grow despite the financial downturn that threatened to cripple small businesses during the global financial crisis years.

The captivating story of a small town coming back to life, with the goal to revolutionise the way we eat filled Amanda with excitement and a seed was planted. But at the time it was seed she imagined someone else would nurture and grow for Murrurundi.

With printed copies of the book in short supply, Amanda settled on the audible version and got stuck in listening and enjoying the stories and the similarities in communities. She finished and got on with my life and business exporting quality, Australian performance horses around the world, including to the Thai Royal Family.

It was at the Thai Royal stables in Bangkok in September 2019, that she had a chance encounter with an expat called Helen, from a little town in Vermont, very near Hardwick ... "The Town that Food Saved".

The coincidence wasn't wasted on Amanda, who took the opportunity to discover more about how the small town re-invented itself and remained in contact with Helen. Vermont and the book moved to the back of Amanda's mind and she carried on with corporate life.

"Little did I know at the time that my ancestral sisters had already been at work in my dreams and planted a seed that is now The Murrurundi Collective," Amanda said.

Born in Orange and raised in the Western Suburbs of Sydney, Amanda says there was a certain determination and grit that came with the territory. In more recent years Amanda has discovered her Aboriginal heritage and links to the Wiradjuri people. It's an identity she is proud to explore and is still understanding what it means.

Amanda had spent 17 years building her exporting business. Horses were her passion and purpose. She had formed her identity around this business. It allowed her to unite her passion for horses and travel to share some of the most prestigious equine bloodlines with the world.

That all slipped away in March 2020 when she arrived back to Australia after delivering a shipment of horses to Bangkok, to find the world's borders were closing down in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Overnight my exporting business disappeared, I had no idea at the time that it would disappear into the abyss, I just kept saying it's a speed bump, just need to get over this hurdle and then the next and the next, Amanda said"

"Originally, I took the 12 months down time to really get the business in ship shape order, finally a chance to tidy things up, streamline my processes, learn new tricks to help my business and clients I took advantage of the free government assisted programs like Business Connect and really felt confident that we were ready to jump straight back in when they said go, but it was obvious by March 2021 there was no more hanging on or waiting for the green light."

The world had changed forever and Amanda was forced to come to terms with the painful reality that her livelihood was no longer viable.

It is a loss and an identity she still mourns.

"I worked so hard in this business, I kept fighting for it even when the universe felt it was against me, through Equine Influenza, the Global Financial Crisis, Drought and now a pandemic, I was someone who lost her business, livelihood and identity and was suffering in silence," Amanda said.

"I felt hopeless, I felt that I had let all my contractors down, my clients and worst my family who had supported me every step of the way over the past 17 years.

"I cried for about a month, I walked the dogs daily, I may have drank my fair share of wine, but I was also aware that my passion for horses gifted me a life that I was living the dream, the loss hurt but was not lost on me."

Despair soon turned to determination and fate seemed to intervene once again when Amanda received a message from Helen from Vermont.

"[Helen] was back in Vermont now due to the pandemic and was just letting me know that she was thinking of me in Australia and that one day again we would be back in Bangkok sipping drinks at the Royal Stables," Amanda said.

"Something in that message sparked a firecracker in me and I was in a hurry to see what it all meant, none of this annoying pivoting stuff I was on a mission to find out what the universe was trying to tell me.

"So, I put my headphones on and listened to the book again, this time I could imagine it, it was like a was chasing some electric current, my brain was in overdrive and just could not stop thinking about it and what I needed to do.

Amanda reconnected with Glen Chapman of Southern Blue Regenerative Agriculture and started "down a rabbit warren" she says she is still navigating daily.

"All I knew is that I wanted to do something for my community that included economic sustainability, and tapped into our abundance of skills, knowledge and ability and it just so happened that it all came back to food," Amanda said.

"Now you must understand I have absolutely no background in food, like seriously I cannot even carry a coffee, I am a food lover but not a cook so how the hell did I find myself in this position."

"I can honestly say that I could have never foreseen this path for me, but I am comfortable with this space and excited that I will make an impact for women, my community, and others," Amanda said.

Amanda's vision for Murrurundi is to grow a truly sustainable lifestyle, partnering with our farmers, growers and producers and the local community to create a totally local experience.

But you don't have to be a farmer to join. The beauty of the collective is that it's more than just a a farmer's market, it's about arming members of the community with information and guidance to turn a hobby or simply an idea, into a side hustle that can create an income while also benefiting the local community. A side hustle that has the potential to grow as much as the hustler chooses to grow it.

"In general people are a little bit unsure about what a community food hub looks like and what it actually is," Amanda said. "And it's quite a broad term, it's all things to all people and it's very different for every sort of community."

"But my expectation for ours is a place of food discovery we need to start looking at what we have, what we can do, and then identify what it is that our community can do for our economic sustainability."

"We've had people that have just started out with just a little bit of fresh produce; and then we've been able to say to those people who would normally just grow and share that food with friends, that we've can now place orders with them weekly to be able to give them a bit of income and show them that the capacity is there,"

"We've also then been able to introduce them to other businesses that would actually like to purchase their product as well. So again being able to grow just a very small component of their business,"

Small steps are the motivation behind the Collective. Steady and sustainable is key - there's no desire for get-rich-quick, or to build an empire Amanda says. It's all about recognising what the community can do for each other and what that looks like for a sustainable economic future.