Courtesy of Olivia Lombardo
Olivia Lombardo ’25 has served in the Yale College Council as the sophomore class president, the deputy finance policy director and a member of the Freshman College Council Executive Board. Next year, she plans to continue her work in the YCC as events coordinator.
Lombardo, who is running unopposed, believes that she has gained sufficient experience during her two years of involvement in the YCC to help her succeed as events coordinator. Lombardo, who is a former staff writer for the News, said she also has a plan for how to improve the position’s effectiveness.
“I have the necessary experience and understanding of the organization, but I also have a vision and what I see as a path forward for the events side of the YCC,” Lombardo said.
She believes that the YCC events coordinator has the ability to make a significant impact in both the Yale community and the border New Haven community through the events that they organize. As a result, her platform has two primary concerns: having fun and making an impact.
Lombardo hopes to accomplish these goals by ensuring institutional knowledge is passed down through generations of the YCC and expanding the existing programming to include events that students want to have. She believes that surveying which events students really want to see through would allow the YCC to allocate funding more effectively and hold events that students will attend and enjoy.
Lombardo also wants to ensure that the YCC events coordinator organizes events that make a difference both at Yale and in the New Haven community.
“We want to make an impact,” she said. “We want to feel like students can attend our events without financial barriers and we want to feel that we’re also engaging with the New Haven community in a way that was not prioritized in the past administration.”
One way that Lombardo hopes to use YCC events to make an impact in New Haven would be to reduce food waste from events by donating leftovers. In the past, Lombardo has worked with the organization Haven’s Harvest to donate leftover food from Model United Nations events to those in need.
“They take excess food that clubs and events have afterwards and they then can pick up the food and give it to those who need food,” Lombardo told the News. “This might be small, but it’s something that we as YCC can do to reach a lot of people to uplift New Haven and reduce food waste.”
Ultimately, Lombardo believes that she is best suited for the events coordinator position because she has what it takes to build the non-elected portions of the YCC into a well-oiled machine.
She emphasized that when students vote, they don’t just vote for the candidate — they vote for everyone that candidate will appoint as well.
“When you elect a president and vice president you’re also then electing a chief of staff, a business director, policy teams,” Lombardo said. “The same goes for the events director. When you’re voting for events director you’re voting for someone you believe in to handle a huge budget and to create their own events team. It goes beyond ideas and whether you think they can fulfill them, it goes to do you think this is the person who you believe can build up this organization.”
The election this year will run from Wednesday, April 12 at 9:00 a.m. to Friday, April 14 at 9:00 p.m. Results will be announced by Saturday, April 15 at 9:00 a.m.