The Varsity Leadership Council (VLC) is a student-run organization that speaks on behalf of Queen’s varsity athletes and runs initiatives throughout the year to connect Queen’s athletes with the Kingston community.

This year, the VLC held events such as the Partners in Mission Food Bank initiative where they collected almost 800 pounds of canned goods and non-perishable items to donate to the Kingston community.

Alongside this, the VLC ran community outreach and mentorship programs such as Gaels Care, Gold Rush, Super Saturday, as well as mental health awareness programming.

VLC chair and Queen’s basketball senior Harry Range is graduating this year, leaving behind the program he helped build. The Journal asked Range about the VLC’s future plans and initiatives.

“We plan to introduce a new executive council, still to be determined. We are looking to continue to run the same initiatives, like CIBC Run for the Cure, Martha’s Table, Motionball, Bell Let’s Talk Day, Shoot for the Cure, [and] Autism Mentorship Program Day,” Range said.

The VLC also plans to introduce new initiatives in the coming year.

“[We want to] introduce some new ones that we didn’t get to do because of COVID-19, including Tricolour Games, an event to raise money and allow teams to intermingle and play games together, and much more.”