April 1, 2024 – Middle school delegates from the Model United Nations (MUN) Program at the Community Center of La Cañada Flintridge (CCLCF) brought home multiple awards from the Laguna Beach Invitational Model United Nations Conference on Saturday, March 23rd.

Model United Nations is a national program that gives teens the opportunity to experience how the real United Nations operates, while actively participating in resolving real-world issues. Our 14 MUN delegates worked over the past 5 months preparing for the conference by gaining an understanding of MUN, how to deliberate with other countries, what rules to follow, and how to speak confidently in front of a group.

Demonstrating remarkable diplomacy and leadership skills, CCLCF’s delegates returned with stellar achievements, securing three Commendations and one Outstanding Delegate award at their first conference. Congratulations to the delegates for this outstanding accomplishment, and to the conference organizers for a fantastic event! The next conference will be held later this month at Mater Dei High School where our delegates look to further their success.

The CCLCF MUN Program serves ages 11-14 and was developed by Montana LaBarge during her internship last summer. Her idea was to help middle school-age students get ready to participate in their High School MUN programs in a way that didn’t seem overwhelming and was not cost-prohibitive. She recruited fellow La Cañada High School MUN participants Ava Radabaugh, Dylan Jeffries, and Mona Dillard to be peer-to-peer instructors and the program was launched in Fall 2023. The innovative CCLCF program feeds into any local high schools with MUN programs including LCHS and Polytechnic School in Pasadena.

CCLCF Executive Director Betsy Ferguson looks forward to continuing the program next year. “One of the great things Montana did was to set up the program to be sustainable in future years”, she said. “Each set of our paid student instructors includes a high school junior to lead the program the following year.”

Registration for next year’s team will begin in late August on CCLCFs website: cclcf.org