A pop-up grocery store will be set up in the former RSL Club building at Mungindi after the town's only supermarket was destroyed by fire on Tuesday.
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The state government is providing $100,000 to Moree Plains Shire Council to establish a temporary store to ensure Mungindi residents, who live 120km away from the nearest supermarket, have access to basic essentials.
The former RSL Club building, which has been vacant for a few years now, was chosen by the community to house the temporary store following a crisis meeting on Wednesday night.
"It has access to a cool room and other things, plus it has power and is very central to the main street," Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall said.
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The pop-up store will be operated by the Mungindi Progress Association, with support from Moree Plains Shire Council.
Mr Marshall said there's the potential to keep Spar Supermarket employees on board to work in the store, along with community volunteers.
The Progress Association was having a working bee on Thursday morning to clean up the RSL Club in preparation for the opening of the pop-up store, with an initial order of groceries to be made using the $100,000 of emergency funding which is now available.
Mr Marshall said the store will just have the basic supplies, such as bread, milk, fruit and vegetables, meat and toiletry items.
"It's not going to represent what the supermarket had, but it will be enough to keep everyone looked after," he said.
Meanwhile, the existing community bus service to Moree will be increased to daily to provide Mungindi residents the option of accessing other items they may need in Moree.
At this stage, however, if residents do travel to Moree to shop, they will have to isolate for 14 days in Mungindi before they cross the Queensland border.
Mr Marshall is working to change this and has submitted a formal proposal to the Queensland government to temporarily add Moree into the border bubble so if Mungindi residents travel to Moree to shop, they won't be prevented from accessing the hospital or their doctors on the Queensland side of town.
"No-one can justify making people choose between getting groceries or seeing your doctor," Mr Marshall said.
The proposal has been backed by the whole of the NSW government, and Mr Marshall is hopeful that will be approved within days.
Mr Marshall has also announced that assistance will be provided to the owners of the buildings lost in the fire, to remove all of the debris and clean up those sites at no cost, in an effort to fast-track the rebuilding process.
"It'll be one less thing for them to worry about and one less cost they have to incur or that their insurance doesn't have to cover," Mr Marshall said.
A team from Public Works NSW will be on site today to assess the debris and what needs to be done to remove the rubbish and asbestos.
Following the community meeting, Lynda Stoltenberg from the Department of Regional NSW has been deployed to coordinate the recovery effort.
She is already on the ground and will be working with council and the Progress Association and will be coordinating the donations coming through.
The Mungindi Progress Association has also set-up a GoFundMe fire appeal, with all money raised to be split equally between the owners of three stores "who have lost their livelihoods".
"This money is not necessarily for rebuilding if the owner chooses not too, it is simply a donation towards what they have lost," Mungindi Progress Association said in a Facebook post.
In just 17 hours, the GoFundMe has already raised more than $38,000 as donations flood in from all over the country and beyond.
If you would like to donate, go to www.gofundme.com/f/mungindi-fire-appeal.
