An army of volunteers has stepped forward to ensure students self-isolating on campus have a regular supply of food and medicines in their hour of need.

Food boxes are now being delivered to some of the 1,700 students stranded on campus because, for various reasons, they cannot get home.

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

It is understood around 30 per cent of the students remaining on campus are self-isolating as a precautionary measure.

Last Thursday morning 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.

Head of Student Wellbeing Dr Sarah Sweeney 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 Wednesday and by 2pm on Thursday the first boxes were on their way,” said Sarah. “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.

“It’s a healthy balance of items – vegetarian is standard – but includes some treats,” added Sarah. “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 started her new role as Head of Student Wellbeing last week.

“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 Corona Virus 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.

Picture caption:Allison Cooke, the Retail Manager from Central Supermarket on campus, who has worked tirelessly to ensure students on campus have access to essential food especially those in isolation who need help. From constantly seeking reliable suppliers for Central to helping put together food boxes (seen here) for students self-isolating in on-campus accommodation she and her staff have kept Central open.