Members of the Stony Brook University community donated a variety of items to help provide comfort to the SUNY students that were placed in a 14-day precautionary quarantine at Stony Brook Southampton.

Care packages with shawls, games, journals and more were donated to the students.

The last four of the students departed the Southampton campus on Monday. Stony Brook Southampton, which accommodated 26 students — 22 from the study abroad program in Italy and four more from South Korea — was selected as one of the locations for the precautionary quarantine because it has the facilities, services, technology, clinical and general staffing capabilities to accommodate New York State Department of Health precautionary quarantine guidelines. All students were pre-screened and had no symptoms of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.

Joan Dickinson, director of Stony Brook University Community Relations, put the call out for donations to provide “comfort care” to the students, and four groups responded: the Stony Brook Stitchers, the School of Professional Development, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) and the Stony Brook Cancer Center.

Dickinson said the call for donations asked the question, “If you were away from home, what would you need to get through this?”

Items included knitted blankets, clothing, board games, playing cards, journals, books, snacks, toiletries, arts and crafts, as well as some Stony Brook University swag.

Dickinson noted that 17 students in the initial group were Fashion Institute of Technology students studying abroad in Italy, and so an effort was made to provide items that would satisfy their creative energy.

The Faculty Student Association provided hot food to the students each day, following SUNY/NYS DOH guidance on food delivery procedures.

Teams from the Facilities and Services Department, the Provost’s Office, Division of Information Technology/Teaching and Learning Technology, and the Division of Student Affairs including Campus Residences, Counseling Services, Student Health Services, Student Support Team, Campus Life, Environmental Health & Safety, Transportation, and Campus Dining all worked together to ensure that the students received proper academic support with minimal personal discomfort.

An expert team of clinicians provided medical surveillance, including COVID-19 monitoring, as well as support for non COVID-19 issues, mental health and other issues.