After Amanda Lockyer helped organise a social event for farmers and the families in the Armidale area, she was blown away by the response.
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The branch manager of Armidale's Landmark branch said they had 350 people RSVP for the social event, called 'Night out from the drought', which was held at Armidale Golf Club on Friday, October 18.
They came from as far away as Guyra, Ebor and Bundarra.
The event was a joint effort by Landmark and the golf club, after they noticed a social night out was desperately needed.
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Hugh Fraser, a board member at the Armidale Golf Club, is a customer of Amanda's and almost two months ago they were discussing the ongong drought.
"We noticed people were really starting to hit a wall mentally," Amanda said.
"They were prepared that they were probably going to have to feed through to October, because even if we got rain in winter it wasn't going to grow a lot of feed.
"But as time went on and we were getting no rain, there was just no light at the end of the tunnel, no feed coming.
"So we found, generally optimistic people, were all of a sudden finding it very difficult. So we thought let's try and have a social night," she said.
Unlike previous events for landholders during the current drought, Amanda said the focus of the event was always planned to focus on being a fun evening.
Plans soon included getting a stand-up comedian as entertainment, and for the kids there was a jumping castle and face painting.
"It affects everyone on the farm," Amanda said.
"It's not just the father, it's not just the mother, it's the children who are out feeding - after school, before school , weekends - so (the activities) give the kids a break, and gives the parents a chance to chat while they play."
There were also plenty of giveaways, so everyone went home with something, from a voucher for a free coffee in town, to the biggest prize, which was five nights away at Coolangatta.
Amanda said the prize pool added up to $20,000 thanks to the generousity of businesses.
"We had a lot of businesses that wanted to help us," Amanda said.
"They said we want to tell farmers that we care about them.
"They wanted to just let them know that they're not forgotten."
