NYU Abu Dhabi students are nothing if not resourceful. So when their bellies began to rumble for shawarma, three intrepid individuals — senior Rock Zou and sophomores Quan Vuong and Martin Slosarik — developed a plan to bring shawarma to Saadiyat. But not just any shawarma.

They called Foodlands, whose beloved shawarmas were a staple of the student diet back at Sama Tower. "Foodlands is awesome, period," said Zou, who arranged for the restaurant to deliver to the Saadiyat Campus if the University's order was more than AED 200. They then spread the word, telling friends who told friends who told friends and by setting up a "Foodlands on Saadiyat" Facebook group, where fellow students placed their orders and left celebratory messages in support of the No Shawarma Left Behind campaign.

The AED 200 minimum was reached just hours after the Facebook group was created. "We had to stop when we got a total of about 130 shawarmas from more than 40 people — we thought we couldn't handle more," said Zou. Luckily for those who missed out, the trio plans to make the Foodlands order a weekly affair.

"We want people to get used to this crowd-sourced food-ordering model," said Zou. "Through this campaign, we also validated that such an idea is executable." But above all, he added, "We want happiness on the island of happiness."