Students who find themselves separated from their friends or sobriety at the UF-Georgia game this weekend can stop by one of three safe zones near The Jacksonville Landing and get some help.
For the third year in a row, UF and the city of Jacksonville will host the Sideline Student Safety Zone, according to a Monday UF news release.
On Friday and Saturday, students and others will have access to first aid, water, snacks, coffee, phone service, universal cell phone chargers and directions. Staff will be equipped with computers to assist students as well.
The zones will provide access to taxis and a free downtown trolley service offered by Jacksonville.
One safety zone will be behind Starbucks inside the Landing. Another will be outside the Landing at the intersection of Laura Street and Independent Drive. The third location will be behind the Welcome Center across from Jacksonville Municipal Stadium.
The zone will be open Friday night from 4 p.m. to 3 a.m. and Saturday from noon to 3 a.m., according to the release.
Last year, providing the safety zones cost UF at least $8,000, including hotel expenses for the volunteers, said Myra Morgan, UF's director of external relations for Student Affairs.
Seventeen volunteers from UF will be staffing the zones, along with EMTs and two UF police officers. The officers will only be helping students in need, not enforcing the law, Morgan said.
The staff will not be there to get intoxicated students in trouble with UF or the police, she said.
"Our goal is to get people back home in one piece," she said.
The biggest problems the staff encounters, she said, are people who are drunk or have dead cell phones and are trying to find their friends or hotels.
UF created the zones in 2006 largely as a result of two student deaths, one in 2004 and one in 2005, during UF-Georgia festivities in Jacksonville, she said.
"(The students) just ended up in an area where they shouldn't have been by themselves," she said. "So that's one thing we're trying to prevent."
