Staff file photo / Mason Cole Olivia Lee, a fifth-grade student at Seaborn Elementary, and Chase Dooley, also a fifth grade student, play Jenga Giant at the Disconnect Club.

WEATHERSFIELD — Seaborn Elementary School’s “Disconnect Club” is continuing to grow as the Trumbull Retired Teachers Association donated 53 board games to the group earlier last week.

“We got everything from Memory, we got more Scrabble boards. We got brand new games that aren’t even out of the box, Sorry, Trouble, you name it,” Stephanie Dota, a fifth- and sixth-grade social studies teacher at Seaborn and student council adviser, said.

At the club, students rid themselves of electronic devices and spend an hour playing board games and socializing.

The Disconnect Club was started by the fifth- and sixth-grade student council. The first meeting was Feb. 1 and the club ran through the end of March.

Dota said she recently was approached by a member of the TRTA who wanted to know how they could support the Disconnect Club. When contacted, the member asked to remain anonymous.

Dota said the retired teacher was “saddened to hear” about the distractions caused to students by technology and that they “loved the idea,” of the club and hoped other schools would take similar action.

The retired teacher initially offered to raise money for the club, but Dota instead asked for lightly used games.

Cindy Harris, president of the Trumbull Retired Teachers Association, said after getting approval from the organization’s board in March, she placed an article in the association’s newsletter asking for gently used board games and card games.

“It went out in our newsletter, our newsletter was posted on our website, and, from that, at our meeting this past Tuesday we collected all those games,” Harris said.

Harris said the association has about 300 members and roughly 75 to 85 who attend its general membership meetings every other month. In total, they collected 53 games, some lightly used, some brand new, to donate to the club.

“We had no idea what we might collect, but I am not surprised at the generosity of our membership,” she said. “They are very generous with any of our service projects and we do a number of them throughout the year.”

Dota said she is grateful for the donation. She said being a teacher can feel “defeating” at times and they sometimes have to pay for things “out of their own pockets.” She said the response to the Disconnect Club has been humbling.

“This made me feel bigger than what it actually is,” she said. “Starting this club was huge for me. I felt like it was such a unique concept … For other teachers, retired teachers, to acknowledge something we’re trying to do, it just speaks volumes.”

Right now, the club is on pause because of state testing. But, Dota said the club’s next session, which is planned to start in the fall, is already full with 30 students and has a wait list of 15 more.

Dota said Seaborn Principal T.J. Koniowsky suggested the possibility of having the Disconnect Club become an “official” club offered through the school and not through student council.

“That’s what we’re hoping for,” Dota said. “We’ve got to hope to get that approved through the school first, but that’s definitely a suggestion.”

Have an interesting story? Contact Mason Cole by email at mcole@tribtoday.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @masoncoletrib.