As students across the country are faced with the reality of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and college campuses moving classes online, they are not only confronting the logistical challenges of leaving campus and transitioning to digital learning, but also the difficult reality of what these changes mean for them and for their classmates.

At the University of Chicago, 21-year-old senior Adrianna Barnett has been working to organize students to donate and deliver food and supplies as the campus grapples with the changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now in isolation at her off-campus apartment, the Jacksonville, Florida, native talked with Teen Vogue about the work she’s been doing to organize thousands of students to come together and to help her campus community — and shares what other students can do too.

Teen Vogue: How did you find out the University of Chicago would be switching to online learning and that students would be leaving campus? And as a senior, what has that been like for you?

Adrianna Barnett: It was actually kind of chaotic here because we actually heard through our school newspaper that the school would be closing before we actually got the official announcement.

Painful is definitely a good word for [the situation]. Senior events and everything being canceled is really upsetting. Me and some of my friends are low-income students, [and] up until this year we’ve never been on a spring break trip. This was our last year to do it [and now we can’t]. It’s a lot of things like that.

TV: What tools have you been using to cope?

AB: Yesterday was my first day [in self-isolation]. A couple of days ago a friend and I went to this bookstore that’s down the street from my apartment. We picked up a bunch of thousand-piece puzzles, so that’s scattered on my living room floor at the moment. I think primarily just trying to pull together resources for people to use is what I’ve been focusing on a lot. I think that it helps me feel like I have some control over the situation.

TV: How are people organizing on campus to support each other?

AB: [One of the] already existing resources at the University of Chicago [is] the student-run emergency fund. They collect donations and they do fundraisers throughout the year to build this fund students can apply to in case of emergency.

In terms of what I personally have been involved in, we really rapidly put together this group of people who are all working together. It’s called UChicago Mutual Aid, and we’ve developed a Facebook group, a Facebook page, [and] an Instagram. What we’ve been doing, primarily, is collecting donations on campus to distribute to people in need, especially nonperishables that people can use while they’re holed up in their apartments.

We have been petitioning the university [administration] to help students. [We want] residential assistants to continue to get paid through next quarter. That worked and they’re going to continue to be paid through next quarter. We petitioned to have finals [pushed back]. [Editor’s note: It is currently the winter quarter final exam period for students.]

We’re working on trying to make sure housing staff and other staff on campus — non-professors — continue to get paid through next quarter. I’m not sure how well that’s going. Other things that we’re doing include matching people to housing, putting together spreadsheets, and trying to make sure people have housing for next quarter.