For millennials and older, childhood memories tend to include nights spent around the dinner table rolling dice, shuffling paper money, and moving plastic or metal tokens around boards.
Kids now have far more digital distractions. A fifth-grade teacher at Temple Terrace Elementary is hoping to help remedy that by gifting her 68 students brand-new, family-friendly board games.
Old School. You know the ones. Plus, the thousands that have been released over the last few years since the pandemic drove a board game renaissance.
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Naomi Frierson hopes they take them home over the winter holiday to play with their families.
"These kids have very little concept of how to function in a low-tech, no-tech environment, and so this was an opportunity for them to do something that involved their hands and their brains and not a screen,” she said.
Supporting low-income students
Many of Frierson’s students come from low-income families and are angel tree recipients. She said these board games may be some of the only gifts they get.
“We choose the game that we think each child would enjoy the most, because we have kids of all ability levels, even in our one grade. And we want to make sure that we're not giving something super complex to a kiddo that needs a little bit of support,” Frierson said.
“And we put all the gifts under the tree, and we all sat together as a family and distributed the gifts and let everybody open them, so that they had that almost kind of Christmas morning experience.”
While donations of gently used board games with all their pieces and manuals are still appreciated for the classroom library, Frierson is trying to give students an opportunity to open something brand new.
“For some of these kids, all they've ever had is hand-me-downs,” she said, “so getting to crack that plastic open…there is a level of satisfaction there. And Lord knows, they're into things that are satisfying. They love that.”
This is Frierson’s second year giving her students a board game Christmas.
You can help her by purchasing a new game off her Amazon wishlist, or if you’re willing to brave the week-before-Christmas shopping frenzy, purchasing the games in person and dropping them off at Temple Terrace Elementary School at 124 Flotto Ave, Tampa, FL 33617.
While she’s confident she’ll meet her goal, she said it doesn’t hurt to start stockpiling games for next year’s fifth-grade holiday party.
Other ways to help
You can also contribute to the boardgame fund, a “store” where students can earn money to purchase small toys or other classroom expenses, directly through Frierson’s payment apps.
Cashapp: $NaomiFrierson
Venmo: NaomiFrierson
Frierson said donations of gently used children’s clothing and non-perishable food items for the school pantry are also helpful. You can also donate your time as a tutor or substitute grandparent.
“A lot of our kids do come home from atypical home structures, not the nuclear family, and they might be being raised by extended family members,” Frierson said. “So giving them some of that normalcy here really helps them feel loved and cared for in a larger way.”
Plus, Frierson joked, you never know when you’ll need their help in the future.
“You don't have to have a kid here to be involved here. You can just come because you care about these kids’ future, you care about this community, and you care about who's going to be doing your open heart surgery in 25 years.”
