NEWBURYPORT — After traveling to California months ago, local resident Oliver Pinyochon has been taking the long way home in the shape of a cross-country walk, all in the name of raising money for charity.
In a 3,000-mile journey that started in January, the 25-year-old is nearing the end of the line and is inviting the community to come join him for the final leg on July 12.
“I’m going to invite whoever wants to join to walk maybe the last 10 miles, onto the beach and then call it a celebration there and then,” Pinyochon said, explaining that the last leg of his walk will be from Maudslay State Park to Plum Island.
Pinyochon, speaking on a rest day Thursday, said he is walking to raise money for Sound of a Smile, a nonprofit based in Africa that offers educational opportunities as well as housing.
He first became aware of the organization in 2025 while living in South Africa.
“I was working in wildlife biology and doing some volunteering in the local townships that I was living near,” Pinyochon said. “And so there was this township called Kurland that I was doing a lot of work in, sort of on the community service front.”
While there, he saw the work of Sound of a Smile and met the founder, who happened to also be from Massachusetts, resulting in a quick connection that remained strong even after Pinyochon returned to the states. He said the two got to discussing how Pinyochon could help the nonprofit.
After reading a few books, Pinyochon said he became inspired by the concept of a long voyage journey.
“I thought that would be a perfect way to try to fundraise for Sound of a Smile is to just really put myself in a position that people might look at and think, ‘Oh, this, this guy’s kind of crazy, but I respect it,’ enough that people are willing to throw twenty, thirty dollars in, and then if enough people do that, we could build hundreds of houses.”
After kicking off his sojourn in Huntington Beach, California, on Jan. 25, his path has taken him across the Mojave Desert and through dozens of states.
“Ohio is where I started to go more northeast, and so northeast Ohio to Pennsylvania and New York. Once I got to Buffalo, now I’m heading straight east again to Newburyport. So right now I’m currently in Utica, and hopefully I can be in Albany in a couple days, and then from Albany to Newburyport is only like 180 miles, so it should take me eight to 10 days or so,” he said Thursday.
His goal is to raise $50,000 for Sound of a Smile.
“I knew that was going to be a lofty goal, but I would rather make the goal higher and people see it and hopefully that would garner a little bit more fundraising that way because people would see the goal and see that we’re still fairly far away from it and wanna give a little bit more if they can,” Pinyochon said. “I think we’re at $22,000 right now or $23,000, and I’m hoping we can break $30,000 by the end of this whole thing, but if we can get more somehow, then that would be amazing.”
He spoke about what the monthslong journey has been like, sharing how confident he was early on.
“I’ll be honest, when I first started, I think I had this like newbie energy to the walk, I don’t know how else to explain it,” Pinyochon said. “I had this maybe ignorance to how the walk was actually going to go. So for the first month to two months, I was just, you know, pepping my step. Like, this is an amazing, amazing adventure. I’m seeing so many cool things for the first time.”
Eventually, reality caught up with him, sharing that it was around halfway through New Mexico that fatigue began to set in, Pinyochon said.
“And then by the time I was crossing from Kansas to Missouri, I knew that I would have to really dig deep to finish it because at that point, I was feeling very emotionally, mentally drained,” he said.
Pinyochon said he could not have gotten this far without everyone supporting him and pushing him onward.
“I had to rely on support from people outside of the walk, support from my family, my friends, experiences that I’ve had in the past, reminding myself why I’m doing it, who I’m doing it for, and then just picturing the finish point and how good it would feel to just get there,” Pinyochon said.
His mother, Caroline Jolliffe, said she is proud of her son’s resilience and has been more than happy to lend a supportive ear when needed.
“He has a good way of finding perspective when he needs it, to zoom out and say, ‘OK, I’m doing this by choice, not because I have to, and there are a lot of people in the world with bigger struggles that don’t have a choice,’ so he is able to get through with that kind of mindset,” Jolliffe said.
Regarding the July portion of his walk, Pinyochon stressed that he does not want it to be a celebration of himself but more a celebration of community coming together to support a good cause.
“If they feel inclined to join at the last day of the walk, even if they want to get a couple miles of steps in for exercise, I want it to be an inviting community activity,” Pinyochon said.
To donate to Pinyochon’s cause, visit: https://linktr.ee/ojpinyochon?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio.
Matt Petry covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: mpetry@northofboston.com.