A service to ensure students self-isolating on campus have a regular supply of food and medicines in their hour of need has been extended to students off campus.

Food boxes are now being delivered to self-isolating, house-bound University students living in Lancaster, Morecambe and the surrounding villages.

Those are in addition to boxes being delivered by student volunteers to some of the 1,700 people stranded on campus because, for various reasons, they cannot get home.

The off-campus deliveries are being made by staff volunteers who are permitted to drive University vehicles.

Head of Student Wellbeing Dr Sarah Sweeney said: “We needed to gauge capacity and supplies before we extended the service to students living in postcodes LA1, 2, 3 and 4. We have now been able to do that.”

More than 500 students responded to a Lancaster University Students’ Union call-out for volunteers and a University-wide appeal fielded more than 200 staff and student volunteers.

And two weeks ago, the first boxes, containing £20 worth of staples such as bread, milk, eggs, cheese, vegetables, noodles, cordial, pasta sauce, a sweet treat and, for female students, free sanitary products, were delivered to grateful recipients.

The boxes also contain thoughtful recipe cards suggesting ways of preparing meals using products in the delivery.

Sarah is working closely with Students’ Union Chief Executive Misbah Ashraf, Senior College Principal Nigel Watson, Head of Commercial Services Jo Hardman and Head of Accommodation Candace Davies to rally to the University’s call to provide the vital service.

“We started at 9.30am on the Wednesday and by 2pm on the Thursday the first boxes were on their way,” she said.

“The student volunteers have been absolutely brilliant. We were all so impressed that so many of them volunteered so quickly and willingly. It’s a great team effort and we have already had some lovely emails back from grateful people.”

Self-isolating students in need – without anyone to help them – can use the Lancaster University online store to place their order for a £20 healthy essentials food box.

The team are working with ‘Central’, the Students’ Union-owned supermarket on campus, to utilise their ordering system to source groceries from their suppliers.

All the supplies are delivered to team HQ at Grizedale College, where the team of volunteers, all equipped with face masks, sanitiser, gloves and adhering to strict distancing and other safety protocols, pack the boxes ready for delivery.

“We literally don’t know what we are going to get from ‘Central’ supermarket but we are making the boxes up with a week’s worth of supplies,” added Sarah.

“It’s a healthy balance of items – vegetarian is standard – but includes some treats. We are managing, at the moment, to get boxes out within 15 minutes of ordering.”

The same team have also put a system in place through the colleges to check on students’ welfare and help any students who need medical prescriptions collected from the campus pharmacy.

“We would all just like to thank everyone for helping with this initiative,” added Sarah, the former Manager of the University’s Faculty of Science and Technology who only recently started her new role as Head of Student Wellbeing.

“I wanted to do something constructive to help support students stuck on campus through this lockdown period,” said one of the volunteers. “People are worried about running out of food and it’s great to be part of this initiative which is helping to reassure them and make them feel supported and looked after by the University and Students’ Union.”

Volunteers stepping forward following the University-wide appeal on Friday will be asked to help with a broad array of tasks to ensure the University’s essential services continue to be delivered and to support the wellbeing of students and staff.

This will include, on a rota basis, helping with the preparing and delivering of the food parcels on a daily basis, working with the Colleges to carry out welfare calls and checks, supporting teams responding to coronavirus email enquiries from students and parents and helping to provide additional resource to key areas which are struggling due to increased demand or staff shortages due to illness.