Morro Bay High junior, Joaquin Cuellar, at left, stands with Odd Fellows Lodge 300 member, Glenn Goodwin, who organized the Lodge’s essay contest, and at right, is MBHS sophomore, Vena Frier. Cuellar and Frier were selected for this year’s Pilgrimage for Youth trip to the East Coast. Photo by Neil Farrell
A pair of Morro Bay High School students will join nearly 100 students from the U.S., Canada and several other nations, for the 2025 Pilgrimage for Youth program, sponsored by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) and their sister organization, the Rebekahs.
The I.O.O.F. recently held a small dinner to congratulate the two students selected to participate on the trip, which first began being offered in 1949. Those students are Joaquin Cuellar, 16, a junior at MBHS and Vena Frier, 15 and a sophomore.
Qualifying for the trip entailed writing an essay, Cuellar explained, exploring how the United Nations handles current global issues.
That simple description belies the competitiveness of the essay contest that’s open to high school students from all over.
“This unique educational program,” reads a description of the Pilgrimage program from the I.O.O.F. website, “brings high school students from around the world to study and participate in discussions concerning world affairs, as well as making new and lifelong friends.”
The organization goes on to say that in 2025 there will be 82 students participating from 23 different countries.
The speech contest winner was Stella Stein of Pennsylvania, the website announced, and she will receive a $2,000 scholarship. Second place went to Lily Carter of Alberta, Can., plus a $1,000 scholarship.
Locally, the I.O.O.F. Lodge 300 raised money for the trip through several fundraising events, in particular several very successful jigsaw puzzle exchanges, where puzzlers bring in old jigsaw puzzles and exchange them for others they haven’t completed yet.
Asked how he became interested in the Pilgrimage for Youth Program, Cuellar said he happened upon a notice for the contest in the school counseling office. “I was there looking for job opportunities,” he explained, “and it sounded interesting and fun.
Frier, who takes part in the school’s championship Mock Trial team said she’s interested in going to law school and becoming a lawyer working in diplomacy. “I thought this was a good opportunity,” she said, to practice her diplomacy.
The essays were about 600 words or so and Frier said it amounted to about two pages of text. Cuellar said his essay dealt with human rights and the U.N.’s approach to ensuring those rights are respected, especially in Third World countries. Among the issues he touched on was how the U.N. ensures what should be universal concerns, like safety for workers. “They’re trying their best,” he said of his research into the matter. “They are doing some good things.”
Frier’s essay dealt with something that’s long been an issue locally, fishing, more specifically “global fishing and how the United Nations handles over-fishing.”
Over-fishing has long been an accusation made by regulators and environmentalists when seeking to further restrict especially commercial fishing. “It is a universal idea,” she added.
Frier said she has her sights set on attending Stanford University when she graduates in two years, to study political science with an ultimate goal of going to law school, too.
Cuellar is less committed at this point to any particular school. He said he doesn’t have a specific school in mind to attend but he does want to study environmental science, no matter which school he picks. “My aunt is a biologist,” he said. “She’s been helping me.” He may take advantage of Cuesta College’s free tuition offers for local high school graduates.
The Pilgrimage’s itinerary looks pretty full. They arrive in Philadelphia on June 28 and travel up to New York City. They’ll be in the Big Apple June 29-July 4, visiting all the tourist sights and of course the U.N.
They’ll spend July 4-5 in Boston and take in all of Bean Town’s storied history.
They’ll visit Niagara Falls on July 6; the Gettysburg Battle site on July 7; and then spend July 8-9 in Washington D.C. A visit with POTUS apparently isn’t on the itinerary but they’ll visit the major tourist sites in the Nation’s Capital. (And if they do tour the White House, there’s always a chance that this President could stop by and say Hello.)
They go back to Philly on July 10 and fly home again on the 11th. It’s quite a trip that’s been planned and the local Lodge is happy to be able to fund a couple of students this year.
According to the I.O.O.F. website: “Each student will take part in comprehensive discussions with other students from around the world and make new and lifelong friendships. Also, students will experience one of the greatest cities in the world, New York, attend a Broadway play, visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, tour the 9/11 Memorial, Philadelphia, Ottawa, Niagara Falls, Gettysburg and Washington, D.C.”
Cuellar is a local boy who was born in San Luis Obispo and has lived in Los Osos “my whole life.” He’s a runner having been part of the school’s Cross Country and Track teams and he also works summers for the school district.
Frier said she was born in Utah and her family moved to Morro Bay in 2015, and then to Los Osos in 2016, where they still live.
