Ivanhoe residents are enjoying better meals on wheels than when the jail produced them but they come from the Menindee store — 200km away.
Redsands Takeaway proprietor Petrina Williams said she was preparing the food as part of Ivanhoe's Meals on Wheels service.
The Central Darling Shire approached Ms Williams three months ago, to provide meals for the service, when the previous supplier, the town's local jail, closed.
"I took it on because every little bit helps," she said.
"I don't want to see people that need Meals on Wheels going without."
Ms Williams said she had been working long hours to make the meals, sometimes staying after hours at her store or starting work in the early hours of the morning.
"Sometimes it's 15 hour days because I do the Meals on Wheels for Menindee as well," she said.
"Some get them seven days a week and some get them five days a week in Menindee, so they're picked up three times a week.
"I've been doing that for about three years."
'The old folk need it'
Edward Highnam has driven close to 3,000 kilometres to deliver "hundreds" of frozen meals to Ivanhoe, since the contract started with Redsands at Menindee.
"Before I'd be lucky to travel … two kilometres to pick up the Meals on Wheels from the jail," he said.
"The old folk out here need it," he said.
Mr Highnam said there was an initial scepticism about the meals as they needed to be delivered frozen, but since then the meals had been been received well.
"It's been almost universally positive," he said.
"It's been received a helluva lot better than when the jail was doing it."
Services carry on
Ivanhoe's Postmaster, Ray Longfellow, said the local cemetery and main street landscape were also being cared for by the shire — services which had also been provided by the jail's inmates.
Mr Longfellow said a local transport service had also started up in the last several months, connecting the community to Griffith and Hay.
He said the town and local grazing community will see a big benefit though once road sealing works between Ivanhoe and Hay are finished.
"We have nothing that's going to the north sealed at the moment," he said.
"We have two roads out of here to the south, the Balranald Road and the Cobb Highway to Hay.
"So it [the road sealing] will open up opportunities for the grazing fraternity as well."
