What is Essentials?
Essentials is LUU’s basic needs hub created for students with financial difficulties.
Here, you’ll find emergency food assistance, breakfast products and personal items when you need it most.
Feeling happy, healthy and supported is also essential. That’s why Essentials also holds fun activities, life skills workshops and much more. It’s your place to chill out, make friends and learn basic skills. We offer signposting to support services, including wellbeing and financial literacy.
What Happens When You Visit Essentials?
If you visit Essentials for basic needs support, you will sometimes see a queue in front of the desk. Our staff are doing their best to make everyone visiting feel welcomed, included and respected. We understand your visit can be sensitive – that’s why our staff will have an individual conversation with you. We aim to provide you with the best support, and that may mean taking the time to understand the purpose of your visit.
Please also feel free to just pop in to socialise, chill out, take part in activities and make friends. It’s your space and we’re happy to have you here.
Leaving Leeds this summer? Donate to essentials!
We welcome any donations such as ambient foods, kitchen supplies, bedding and decor.
What can I donate?
We prefer foods that don’t need to be refregerated. However, if you have a lot of food don’t want it to go to waste, we will happily accept them!
- Canned food items
- Condiments
- Noodles
- Long-life milk
- Rice
- Oil
- Pasta
- Oats
- Lentil
- Sugar
- Seasoning
- Flour
- Clean bedding
- Kitchen Utensils
- Cooking and cleaning equipment
- Stationary
- New/Gently-used clothing and shoes
- Sanitary Products
More than emergency food assistance
Essentials is also a place to chill out, talk to people, and learn basic life skills.
Every week, we offer different activities from Fruitful Fridays, bingo games, workshops and so much more! We will keep you updated on the exciting activities in Essentials here.
Where to find us
We are in the LUU building, located on the balcony over the Refectory.
When do we open?
Opening Hours: 11am – 3pm Monday – Friday
If you are struggling, you can access support from the LUU Advice team. The team can provide advice, offer support, and help connect you with other appropriate services where needed.
NOTICE: OUT OF TERM HOURS
From Monday 29 June onwards, Essentials will be open 11am-2pm on Thursdays and Fridays.
Operating on these days allows us to continue accepting and managing our regular FareShare deliveries.
Please note that there will occasionally be Thursdays or Fridays when the service needs to close, including Friday 26 June.
We will update the LUU website and social media channels to reflect these changes.
Volunteering opportunities
We offer volunteering opportunities and you can get a certificate with your service hours.
There will be 3 tiers of certification:
Bronze – 50 hrs
Silver – 100 hrs
Gold – 200 hrs
There will be a prize and a certificate for each level reached.
We also want to say a big thank you to our current volunteers. You’ve all done a great job for Essentials and we appreciate your service with us. Well done!